Good Company’s spring concert is this Sunday, April 21st!
This coming Sunday, April 21st is the concert date for Good Company: A Vocal Ensemble. The concert, called The New Day, will be a choral celebration of the hope and promise found in each rising dawn. 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 Amy Collins, Leon Michaud, Anne and Steve Sanford, Pam Schenk, and Holly Walker. Click here for more information about this event.
Music Notes – Sunday, April 21st:
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 21st. The members of the ensemble are:
Andrea Bolden
Rebecca Chen
Linda Miller
Martha Somach
Cathy Spicer
Bonnie Svetlik
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 28th, 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: Tunes from Southern Harmony – American folk songs
Sunday’s prelude will be a mini-medley of two American hymn tunes. The first is “Brethren, We Have Met to Worship”, which is one lyrical setting of the tune most commonly known as “Holy Manna”. “Holy Manna” was first published in Columbian Harmony, an 1829 shape-note tune book compiled by William Moore (1790-1850), and the melody is usually attributed to him. Today, the tune appears in nearly every Christian hymnal (its most popular modern lyric setting is “God, Who Stretched the Spangled Heavens”) and is found in our Singing the Living Tradition hymnal as the melody of #66 “When the Summer Sun Is Shining”. The second tune is “The Morning Trumpet”, another traditional American tune which is believed to have been first published in the famous shape note songbook The Sacred Harp in 1844. The origins of this tune are not clear, but is is often attributed to B. F. White (1800-1879), who complied The Sacred Harp.
Opening Hymn: We Are Not Our Own – Hurd/Wren
“We Are Not Our Own” (#317) is one of the lesser-known hymns in Singing the Living Tradition. The words come from British poet, theologist and prolific hymn writer Brian Wren (b. 1936), who is the author of several other hymns in Singing the Living Tradition, including “Name Unnamed”, “Joyful Is the Dark”, and “Love Makes a Bridge”. The arching, hopeful tune for “We Are Not Our Own” was written by Dr. David Hurd (b. 1950), an alumnus of Oberlin College and composer, organist, and educator who currently serves as the Director of Music at the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in Times Square, New York City.
Centering Music: By Kells Waters – Celtic Folk Song, arr. Via
Sunday’s Centering Music will be an adaptation of the Celtic Folk Song “By Kells Waters”, named for the small river in County Antrim of Northern Ireland. The arrangement for flute choir was written by Kelly Via, an American flutist, composer, and educator who currently teaches at the Atlanta Music Academy and at Mercer University, where he directs the Mercer University Flute Choir.
Offertory Music: Praise the Lord with Flutes – Karg-Elert, arr. Cathey
“Praise the Lord with Flutes” is a 2002 arrangement for flute choir by American composer, performer, and music educator Robert L. Cathey. Cathey’s arrangement is an adaptation of a piece originally composed for organ by Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933), a lesser-known German composer, organist, and educator. Karg-Elert was best known for his organ compositions, although he also wrote music for various wind instruments and for piano.
Closing Hymn: Rising Green – McDade
Written in 1983, “Rising Green” is #1068 in our Singing the Journey hymnbook. The song was written by Carolyn McDade (b. 1935), a self-described songwriter, spiritual feminist, and social activist, who is also the composer of three other UU favorites: “Spirit of Life”, “Come, Sing a Song with Me”, and “We’ll Build a Land”. About “Rising Green”, the composer shares these words: “Earth shakes out a mantle of green—each blade of grass true to the integrity within, yet together with others is the rise of spring from winter’s urging. Our coming is with the grass—the common which persists, unexalted, but with the essence of life. Our humanness, our rhythms and dreams, the faith which nurtures our ardent love and hope for life—all this we share with earth community, of which we are natural and connected beings.” (from uua.org)
Postlude: Hymn for Chaw Su – Taylor
“Hymn for Chaw Su” is a jazzy adaptation of “Amazing Grace” arranged for alto and bass flutes. The piece was written by Cleveland native Brian Taylor, and was premiered here in our sanctuary during the Greater Cleveland Flute Society’s 2023 Composers’ Connection Concert. You can catch this year’s Composers’ Connection Concert right here at UUCC next Sunday, April 28th at 7:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public, and I hope to see you there!
-Mike Carney, UUCC Music Director