Music Notes – Sunday, Nov. 23rd:
This Sunday’s musicians are The Chancel Choir and UUCC Music Director Mike Carney
Centering Music: Adagio molto (II) from The Four Seasons: Autumn – Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) was an Italian composer of the Baroque period. Vivaldi composed operas, choral music, and many types of instrumental works, but the work he is best known for today is his 1723 set of violin concerti known as The Four Seasons, in which each of the seasons is represented by a mini-suite of three movements. Sunday’s Centering Music will be the second movement of the “Autumn” section (Op. 8, RV 293). The Four Seasons is one of the earliest examples of a composer attempting to represent non-musical ideas using music alone, with no acted narrative, sung lyrics, or pictures. This technique, known as program music, would become very popular among European composers during the mid-19th century, more than 100 years after Vivaldi wrote his most famous concerto.
Song: Up to the Light – Morris
Written for the installation of Rev. Ali Peters at Southwest UU Church on Cleveland’s west side, “Up to the Light” is a 2025 song by award-winning performer and composer Lea Morris (b. 1978), also known simply as LEA. Born in Baltimore to a father who toured the world playing trumpet in the funk band Black Heat and a mother who dreamed of opera while performing with her siblings in the Jones Family Gospel Singers, LEA was singing on the pulpit of the Baptist church where she grew up as soon she could speak. When she discovered the acoustic guitar as a teenager, she began teaching herself to play by writing songs. LEA’s final year in high school in Germany at a classical conservatory, where she sang with the jazz ensemble Black & White and co-wrote with the British pop trio Indigo Wild. Having shared the stage with luminaries including Odetta, Mavis Staples, Dar Williams and Anthony Hamilton, LEA performs at a far-ranging array of venues, including arts centers, universities, festivals, places of worship and beyond. She performs solo and with her band, The Moment. (includes material from thisislea.com)
Special Music: Autumn of Kyoto – Kunimatsu
“Autumn of Kyoto” is a 2014 piece for solo piano by Japanese composer Ryuji Kunimatsu (b. 1977). The historical capital city of Japan, Kyoto is famous for its stunning fall foliage, which peaks in mid- to late November each year. Kunimatsu, himself a native of Kyoto, is well-known internationally as a guitarist and primarily composes for that instrument.
Offertory Music: Sower of Seeds – Traditional Guinean Song/Seeger
“Sower of Seeds” is based on “Minuit”, a traditional West African song. The song is typically sung in the Gwaza style common to many types of African folk music, meaning it has several repeated melodies that can be sung or played independently but can also be overlapped with one another. The words about planting and growing were written by legendary American folk singer-songwriter Pete Seeger (1919-2014).
Song: Name Unnamed – Wooden/Wren
With its angular melody and thought-provoking lyrics, “Name Unnamed” (#31) is one of the less traditional entries in our Singing the Living Tradition hymnbook. The song resulted from a collaboration between British lyricist and well-known hymnist Brian Wren (b. 1936) and American musician, activist and UU Minister Weldon Frederick Wooden (b. 1953). Wooden now serves as senior minister for the historic Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Postlude: Vum Vive Vum – Shaker tune, arr. Siegfried
“Vum Vive Vum” is a Shaker melody arranged by American composer/educator Kevin Siegfried (b. 1969), who is currently serving as composer-in-residence with the Capitol Hill Chorale in Washington, DC, and also teaches songwriting, piano, and music theory at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Siegfried is deeply involved in the research and performance of early American music, and his arrangements of Shaker music have been performed and recorded by choirs across the globe. “Vum Vive Vum” is the central movement of Angel of Light, a cantata based on Shaker themes. The vocal sounds in “Vum Vive Vum” represent a form of American “mouth music” – a style of traditional folk or hymn singing where nonsense words are used to mimic the sounds of instruments or the rhythms of a dance.
-Mike Carney, UUCC Music Director