Seasonal Works On The Program Include:
Seattle resident and frequent award winner, Herbolsheimer was Seattle Artist-in-Residence (Seattle Arts Commission), Washington State Composer of the Year (WSMTA), and winner of the Melodious Accord Choral Music Competition (Te Deum), in addition to the National Opera Association’s New Opera Competition (Aria da Capo). He was also the recipient of composition commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts (Symphony No. 1), Chamber Music America (Tanguy Music), the Seattle Symphony (In Mysterium Tremendum), and from numerous local organizations such as Seattle Men’s Chorus, Seattle Choral Company, St. James Cathedral, Opus 7, Seattle Pro Musica, the Esoterics and the Cascadian Chorale. His works appear on dozen of CDs.
Herbolsheimer’s Christmas carol settings reveal a different aspect of his writing, and are a delightful contrast to his serious sacred works. His setting of O come, O come Emmanuel (1999) is of crystalline simplicity, with the harp discreetly decorating the solo line.
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadow put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Desire of nations, bind
All peoples in one heart and mind;
Bid envy, strife and discord cease;
Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
Liturgical text
Jackson Berkey is an American composer, pianist and singer, best known for his work with Mannheim Steamroller, which he co-founded with Chip Davis in 1974. His O magmun mysterium was written for the Omaha Symphony Chorus and premiered in December of 2017.
This medieval Latin chant for Christmas Day derives from the fantastic proclamation in the first chapter of Luke in the scriptures. The mystery is of the Virgin Birth through the lowly and faithful maiden. The Son of the Most High would lie in the humble manger, allowing the animals and shepherds the first glimpse of the Savior. It is truly a great mystery!
Latin text
O magnum mysterium
et admirabile sacramentum,
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,
jacentem in praesepio,
[O] Beata Virgo,
cujus viscera meruerunt portare
Dominum Jesum Christum. Alleluia.
English text
O great mystery
and wondrous sacrament,
that animals should see the new-born Lord
lying in the manger!
[O] Blessed Virgin
whose womb was worthy to bear
the Lord Jesus Christ. Alleluia!
Introit at first vespers on Sunday within the octave of Christmas
Vytautas Miškinis (b. 1954), one of Lithuania’s leading choral composers, conductors and educators, became a member of the Ažuoliukas (“Little Oak Tree”) Children’s Choir at age seven, and undertook his professional studies at the Lithuanian Music Conservatory with Hermanas Perelsteinas, the choir’s founder and director. Miškinis became Perelsteinas’ assistant and he took over direction of Ažuoliukas in 1979, when he had completed his studies at the Conservatory and his Jewish mentor was forced to emigrate to the United States because of Soviet political oppression.
Miškinis also began working with the Vilnius Teachers House Men’s Choir, the vocal ensemble Museum Musicum and the professional Kaunas State Choir at that time, and he started touring extensively with his ensembles in 1989 following the fall of Communism, winning competitions in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Finland. Miškinis has written some 400 secular pieces and well over a hundred folksong arrangements, many for Ažuoliukas, and, since the end of Soviet rule, more than 150 sacred works, many to traditional Latin texts.
Miškinis composed the striking Dum medium silentium, a setting of the Introit text from the Mass for the first Sunday following Christmas, for the vocal ensemble Calycanthus of Milan in 2008.
Dum medium silentium tenerent omnia,
et nox in suo cursu medium iter haberet,
omnipotens sermo tuus, Domine,
de caelis a regalibus sedibus venit. Alleluia.
When all things were in full silence
and night was in the midst of her course,
Thy almighty Word, O Lord,
came down from heaven from Thy royal throne. Alleluia.
Poem by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
Ola Gjeilo is one of the most frequently performed composers in the choral world. An accomplished pianist, improvisations over his own published choral pieces have become a trademark of his collaborations. Although Norwegian by birth, it is perhaps Ola’s adopted country of America that has influenced the composer’s distinctive soundworld the most, evolving a style that is often described as cinematic and evocative, with a lush, harmonious sound.
Ola grew up in a musically eclectic home listening to classical, jazz, pop and folk, a broad background he later incorporated into his classical composition studies at The Juilliard School, the Royal College of Music in London, and currently as a New York City-based freelance composer. He is especially inspired by the improvisational art of film composer Thomas Newman, jazz legends Keith Jarrett and Pat Metheny, glass artist Dale Chihuly and architect Frank Gehry.
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.
Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.
Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.
What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.
Stars, which Ēriks Ešenvalds wrote in 2011, is a setting of a 1920 poem by Sara Teasdale. The composer’s favorite tuned water glasses are a constant presence in the piece, a glistening accompaniment to the glowing simplicity of this vision of ‘beating hearts of fire’ seen overhead on a still, dark night. The wondrousness of a ‘heaven full of stars’ is evoked by a radiant chorale before a repeated oscillation of a pair of chords, adding to the magic, recedes into silence.
Alone in the night
On a dark hill
With pines around me
Spicy and still,
And a heaven full of stars
Over my head,
White and topaz
And misty red;
Myriads with beating
Hearts of fire
That aeons
Cannon vex or tire;
Up the dome of heaven
Like a great hill,
I watch them marching
Stately and still,
And I know that I
Am honored to be
Witness
Of such majesty.
Jan Sandström is one of Sweden’s most celebrated composers, born in 1954 and educated in his homeland, though his music is now performed across the world (particularly this piece) with concertos for leading instrumentalists, operas and major orchestral works to his name. He rose to fame in the late 1980s with his Trombone Concerto No.1, which has since acquired the title Motorbike Concerto or Motorbike Odyssey as the soloist has to enter the stage on a white motorbike before depicting an epic journey on said mode of transport. It is as far away from Lo, How a Rose E’re Blooming as you might imagine.
Sandström wrote the carol in 1988 and has since written a whole body of works in this style, from other short choral pieces to much larger statements, though with the same design and mood. What makes Lo, How a Rose E’re Blooming interesting, is that Sandström didn’t actually write the piece, well not exactly, he wrote some of it, but most of it is a different piece by the German Baroque composer Michael Praetorius from 1609.
Sandström took seven phrases of Praetorius’s original, then slowed them down and gave the material to a small choir. He then took a larger second choir and provided his own harmonization that envelops and augments the original like opaque clouds encircling a mountain. The results are a shimmering, distant, echo of the metrical Baroque carol with each change of harmony becoming an event in itself, powerful and magnificent.
By using a Christmas carol, Sandström ensured his work would have a lifetime of festive performance opportunities and thus his most performed work was born.
Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming
From tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming,
As men of old have sung.
It came, a flow’ret bright,
Amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.
Isaiah ’twas foretold it,
The Rose I have in mind;
With Mary we behold it,
The virgin mother kind.
To show God’s love aright,
She bore to men a Savior,
When half spent was the night.
This Flow’r, whose fragrance tender
With sweetness fills the air,
Dispels with glorious splendor
The darkness everywhere.
True man, yet very God,
From sin and death He saves us,
And lightens every load.
Traditional sacred texts
The distinguished career of choral composer and conductor Dale Warland spans more than six decades and has made a profound contribution to the mjusic of our time. Founder and music director of The Dale Warland Singers, Warland commissioned over 270 new choral works and fostered the careers of an entire generation of composers. Since 2005, Warland has devoted himself to composing, conducting, teaching, and continues to champion new choral music. Since 2008, Warland has served as Artistic Director of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Chorale as well as Music Director for the Minnesota Beethoven Music Festival Chorale. Warland’s compositions and arrangements have been performed and recorded by choruses throughout the world.
Warland’s Nativity Suite comprises settings of three well-known traditional texts for the Christmas season.
I. Welcome All Wonders
This setting of Richard Crashaw’s 17-century text is meant to capture the excitement that the shepherds must have felt as they witnessed the birth of the “little one.”
Welcome, all wonders in one sight,
Eternity shut in a span;
Summer in winter, day in night;
Heaven in earth and God in man.
Great little one whose all embracing birth,
Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth.
—Richard Crashaw (1613-1649)
II. O Magnum Mysterium
The opening sounds of the instruments and voices in this setting of one of the most widely known of the Latin texts appropriate for Christmas are meant to conjure an air of mystery.
Latin text
O magnum mysterium
et admirabile sacramentum,
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,
jacentem in praesepio,
[O] Beata Virgo,
cujus viscera meruerunt portare
Dominum Jesum Christum. Alleluia.
English text
O great mystery
and wondrous sacrament,
that animals should see the new-born Lord
lying in the manger!
[O] Blessed Virgin
whose womb was worthy to bear
the Lord Jesus Christ. Alleluia!
―Matins for Christmas Day
III. A Boy Was Born
In this setting of the traditional translation of a 16th-century poem, the instruments express the sentiment that animates the choir’s words in ways that voices are incapable of doing.
A Boy was born in Bethlehem:
Rejoice for that, Jerusalem,
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
He let himself a servant be,
That all mankind he might set free:
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
Then praise the Word of God who came
To dwell within a human frame:
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
–16th-Century German
Wintertide is an arrangement of a favorite traditional Norwegian folk melody, with new English lyrics written by Charles Anthony Silvestri. The Seattle Choral Company performed the original folk tune in Norwegian at their 2014 concert, Folk, Fiddle, & Fjord at Saint Mark’s Cathedral.
Stillness comes when snow is falling,
Cov’ring all in solemn white;
Lines of grey from hearth-fires rising,
Gath’ring all in restful night.
Spirit dwells in deep reflection,
Autumn cares to lay aside,
Finding signs of new direction
In the still of Wintertide.
While outside the cold wind blowing,
Swirling, restless raw and rime,
Here inside a wave is growing,
Biding, silent, all in time.
After Winter’s meditation
Gates of nature burst apart;
Comes the Springtime’s inspiration,
Flowing from the ready heart.
Music of Stillness is an emotive text painting of Sara Teasdale’s poem There Will Be Rest. Following a serene opening, the piece rises and falls through both affecting climaxes and passages of great tranquility, conjuring up images of stars shining and snow-covered rooftops. Finally, it ends with the same sense of stillness with which it begins.
There will be rest, and sure stars shining
Over the roof-tops crowned with snow,
A reign of rest, serene forgetting,
The music of stillness holy and low.
I will make this world of my devising
Out of a dream in my lonely mind.
I shall find the crystal of peace, – above me
Stars I shall find.
Glow is a Christmas song that served as a pre-show to World of Color: Winter Dreams during the original 2013 run. Composed by Eric Whitacre, the song was performed by a “Virtual Choir”, composed of numerous volunteers from the internet and assembled together into one track afterwards.
Eric Whitacre (b. 1970) is an accomplished composer, conductor and clinician, and is one of the bright stars in contemporary concert music. Regularly commissioned and published, Whitacre has received composition awards from ASCAP, the Barlow International Composition Competition, the American Choral Directors Association, the American Composers Forum, and this spring was honored with his first Grammy nomination (contemporary classical crossover). This year he became the youngest recipient ever awarded the coveted Raymond C. Brock commission by the American Choral Directors Association; commercially he has worked with such luminaries as Barbara Streisand and Marvin Hamlisch.
Whitacre has already achieved substantial critical and popular acclaim. The American Record Guide named his first recording, The Music of Eric Whitacre one of the top ten classical albums in 1997, and the Los Angeles Times praised his music as “electric, chilling harmonies; works of unearthly beauty and imagination.”
Softly falls the winter snow,
Whispers to the sleeping world below:
“Winter tide awakes.”
Morning breaks and sets the Earth aglow
In gentle tones of warmest white
Proclaims the glory of Aurora’s light.
Sparrow sings in a clear, clean voice
A sweet silver carol for the season born.
Radiant wings as the skies rejoice,
Arise and illuminate the morn.
Softly falls the morning snow
Whispers to the sleeping world below:
“Glow . . . Like the softly falling snow.”
“Glow.”
“Glow.”
Night of Silence is a Christmas carol and Advent hymn, written in 1981 by American composer, Daniel Kantor, and then published in 1984. Although Daniel Kantor has composed and published a number of ritual pieces, “Night of Silence” is by far his most popular. Since its first publication, this choral work has made its way into hymnals, concert settings and recordings all over the world.
For those unfamiliar with Night of Silence, it is a piece embedded with a delightful surprise: it can be sung simultaneously with Silent Night. The effect of the two melodies coming together can, in the words of the publisher, “make a group of average singers sound like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.”
Night of Silence is placed squarely in the season of Advent, a time of spiritual emptying, darkness, longing and anticipation. The text of the song was inspired in part by the north woods of Wisconsin and the sparkle of freshly fallen snow in the moonlight of a sub-zero winter’s night.
Cold are the people, Winter of life,
We tremble in shadows this cold endless night,
Frozen in the snow lie roses sleeping,
Flowers that will echo the sunrise,
Fire of hope is our only warmth,
Weary, its flame will be dying soon.
Voice in the distance, call in the night,
On wind you enfold us you speak of the light,
Gentle on the ear you whisper softly,
Rumors of a dawn so embracing,
Breathless love awaits darkened souls,
Soon will we know of the morning.
Spirit among us, Shine like the star,
Your light that guides shepherds and kings from afar,
Shimmer in the sky so empty, lonely,
Rising in the warmth of your Son’s love,
Star unknowing of night and day,
Spirit we wait for your loving Son.