Good Company’s spring concert is this Sunday, April 13th!
This coming Sunday, April 13th is the concert date for Good Company: A Vocal Ensemble. The concert, called Voices of Earth, will be a choral celebration of our planet and of the fundamental element of Earth. Music of Ola Gjeilo, Johannes Brahms, Joan Szymko and many others will be featured, The performance will be at 4:00 p.m. at Lakewood Presbyterian Church (14502 Detroit Road) in Lakewood. Many of you know that I direct Good Company, and several UUCC members and friends sing with the group, including Lucy Carney, Amy Collins, Leon Michaud, Anne and Steve Sanford, and Holly Walker.
Music Notes – Sunday, April 13th:
This Sunday’s musicians are The Erie Waters Flute Ensemble and UUCC Pianist Karin Tooley
We are very happy to have Greater Cleveland Flute Society’s Erie Waters Flute Ensemble with us as special guest musicians this Sunday, April 13th. The members of the ensemble are:
Linda Miller
Martha Somach
Sydney Vereb
Rae Yeager
The Greater Cleveland Flute Society (GCFS) sponsors recitals, masterclasses, student festivals, and lectures throughout the year to promote flute education and instruction in the community at all levels. GCFS provides outreach activities to enhance awareness of music and the flute through performance and is actively involved in regional and national organizations. Its members include students, adults, teachers, amateur and professional flutists and corporate sponsors. GCFS’s annual Cleveland Composers’ Connection Concert will be here at UUCC at 7 p.m. on Sunday, April 27th, and the event is free and open to the public.
When a group of area flutists performed new flute music on a water theme by Cleveland composers at the Chicago Flute Festival in 2009, The Erie Waters Flute Ensemble was born! Comprised of members from the Greater Cleveland Flute Society, the unique sound of Erie Waters comes from bringing together the entire flute family from bass flute up through alto, C flutes, piccolo, and Native American flutes.
Prelude: Deep River – African American Spiritual, arr. Cacavas
One of the best-known of all Spirituals, “Deep River” is a simple yet powerful song expressing faith and an abiding hope in a brighter tomorrow. Like almost all songs from the African American Spiritual tradition, its true origins are lost to history. “Deep River” was first published in 1876 and recorded in 1911, but most music historians believe it dates back at least 100 years before its publication and could be far older still.
Song: Now Let Us Sing – Anonymous
“Now Let Us Sing” is a song of unknown authorship, probably originating from the folk or camp song tradition. It is a zipper song, meaning the basic structure of the song remains consistent from verse to verse, with just one or two words changed. “Now Let Us Sing” is #368 in our Singing the Living Tradition hymnal.
Centering Music: “Complainte” (Lament) from Quatour – Dubois
Pierre Max Dubois (1930-1995) was a French composer of instrumental music who is particularly known for his contributions to the repertoire for wind instruments. Dubois studied at the Paris Conservatoire and won the 1955 Prix de Rome, a prestigious honor in the world of classical composition.
Offertory Music: Gavotte and Musette from Holberg Suite – Grieg
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) is considered by most musicologists to be the most historically significant composer of Norwegian descent. Like many composers of the Romantic era, Grieg incorporated folk melodies from his homeland into much of his music, and he played a large part in introducing Norwegian culture to international audiences. One of Grieg’s most celebrated works is his Holberg Suite (Op. 40), a five-movement work (originally for piano) written in 1884 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the Norwegian humanist playwright and philosopher Ludvig Holberg (1684-1754). Because the work was written in honor of a historical figure, Grieg composed it using elements of older musical styles, becoming one of the first composers to employ neoclassicism, which would gain widespread popularity among other composers in the mid-20th century.
Song: We Laugh, We Cry – Denham
A native of Cincinnati, Shelley Jackson Denham (1950-2013) was a lifelong Unitarian Universalist, composer and performer. No fewer than six of Shelley’s hymns can be found within our two hymnbooks, including the joyfully rolling “We Laugh, We Cry” (#354 in Singing the Living Tradition), which she composed in 1980.
Postlude: The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba (Handel, arr. Zill)
Without question, German-English composer George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) was one of the most important and influential figures of the Baroque Era. Although he is most famously known today for his dramatic large vocal-instrumental works such as Messiah, Handel also wrote a wide variety of smaller-scale vocal and instrumental compositions throughout his long career. “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” is the instrumental overture that opens the third act of Handel’s 1749 oratorio Solomon. The adaptation for flute ensemble you’ll hear on Sunday was written by German composer and arranger Hans Martin Zill (1959-2007).
-Mike Carney, UUCC Music Director