The Red Wheelbarrow
Composer’s Note: “The Red Wheelbarrow,” an innovative environmental/imagist poem I first read as a teenager, struck me as an alluring and joyful means to immerse in a commission by Austin’s Inversion Ensemble for their Planet Home project. The score blossomed during a fellowship at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, a pastoral setting that nurtured embracing the poem’s vivid landscape. The piano provides a repeating foundation over which the choir playfully evokes the spare text, using variations of the initial theme throughout. There is a contemplative moment midway, then the pulse resumes, concluding with a gleeful repetition of the last line.
| Duration: | 1-5 Minutes |
| Descriptive Tags: | American, Animals, Birds, Carol, Celebratory, Comfort, Community, Dream, Earth Week, Food, Forest, Fruitful Earth, Fun, Humorous, Inspiration, Joy, Light, Metaphysical, Nature, Poetry, PROJECT : ENCORE, Spring, Sun, Sweet, Thanksgiving, Time, Traditional, trees, Unity, Virgin Mary, War |
| Voicing: | SATB |
| Instrumentation: | Piano |
| Language: | English |
| Sacred or Secular: | Secular |
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| TTBB | 3'15" | English | When I first discovered Charles Bernstein’s beautiful poem, I knew immediately that I wanted to set it for men’s chorus. The poem expresses so much within a brief, 4-verse form. I set out to use harmony to color the text’s rich imagery while honoring the poem’s lyrical and repetitive nature in the melody. The surprising […] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| This modern English version of a 9th Century Old Irish benediction lends itself well to both concert and liturgical performance. Liturgically, it fits well as a call to worship or as a communion meditation. The text recalls the doxology given in Revelation 7:12. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| I have loved this poem for as long as I can remember. It’s crisp, fresh imagery, it’s success in conveying, with a magnificent economy, what a poem is all about, is indeed a small miracle. I could not resist the temptation to set it for chorus. Because the poem had “gestated” for many years, I […] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| I Sing of a Maiden (I syng of a mayden) is a Middle English poem or carol of the 15th century celebrating the Annunciation and the Virgin Birth of Jesus. The poem is written from a first person point of view, and contains five quatrains. No evidence of original music is known to exist, though […] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| SATB | 3' | English | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| This award winning setting of “Psalm 150” uses an inclusive language version of this beloved Psalm. Many congregations prefer not to use male pronoun references to God, and in this instance, “his” and “him” as well as the word “Lord” are replaced simply with “God”. The organ part is of particular interest, as it was […] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| This work received second place in the 2015 Ithaca College Choral Composition Competition. It sets a poem by A. E. Housman which was not published until after his death. In 1895 Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for two years for being a practicing homosexual, a crime in England at that time. Housman’s poem, while seemingly tongue-in-cheek, […] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The Noble Art of Music sets two Martin Luther quotations as a bright, uplifting choral fanfare celebrating the joy of singing. Commissioned by the San Francisco Choral Artists, it unfolds in clear panels—urgent, then stately, before opening into a broad final statement—making a crisp, welcoming opener for almost any program. “As long as we live, […] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||