Immigrants to our Shores
This evening’s program celebrates the many people that have come to our shores to establish new lives for themselves and their families. People from countries such as Ireland, Italy, Armenia, and the Czech Republic now call this home, as do natives of Asia and Africa. Many came to escape from something, others seeking wealth or happiness. Some were brought here against their will, while others risked everything for the opportunity to begin again. We are one community with many neighborhoods and identities. While there may be differences in culture, language, traditions, beliefs, and ways of life, we share and are unified by this place we all call home. The Wayfaring Stranger I am a poor wayfaring stranger, a-wand’ring through this world of woe, But there’s no sickness, toil or danger in that bright land to which I go. I’m goin’ there to see my father, I’m goin’ there to roam. I’m only goin’ over Jordan, I’m only goin’ over home. I’ll soon be freed from ev’ry trial, my soul shall rest upon that shore: I’ll drop the cross of self denial, and enter on my great reward. I’m goin’ there to see my brothers, they’ve gone before me, one by one: I’m only goin’ over Jordan, I’m only goin’ over home. I know dark clouds will gather ‘round me, I know my way is rough and steep, Yet beauteous fields lie just before me, Where God’s redeemed their vigils keep. I’m goin. There to see my mother, she said she’d meet me when I come. I’m goin’ there to see my Savior, I’ll sing his praise forever more! I’m only goin’ over Jordan, I’m only goin’ over home. Tonight’s performance is a concert to benefit the Armenian Heritage Foundation. Oror, The Balakian Set, and The Prayer of Saint Gregory are in honor of our Armenian friends.
Oror (Lullaby)
The Balakian Set based on poems by Peter Balakian I. First Communion Mother of God - The wine lusted on my lips, Weeks and weeks the world. It was a rainy morning, the forget-me-nots Still powder blue - odorless, clean with yellow eyes. I stood outside the closed curtain, The ceiling hung like a chalice of air. I knelt in wet clothes and a cloud rose over me. Ashes, Myrrh the oblations. Without deceit or wiles the rain came in sheets, Blurring the windows, a place without doors. II. Idyll with Flying Things I lived behind a window shaped like a peonie, And when the chickadees flew into the evening, I thought they were bats because they twitched When they flew too close to the telephone wires And veered from light thrown in crosses by the far-off city. I wiped the mullions with Fantastik. Sat down, got up, walked around. When it began to rain, I called a handy man to caulk a hole in the joist. I wore Oxford button-downs with thin stripes and shaved before the sun was too high. For a few hours my face took the light and the chickadees and I caught a view of a flag torn by light the saucer lip of a stadium and a glass sky-line. The sky was the iridescent back of a Japanese beetle. The sun thickened like old varnish and the reed-slashed meadowland rose up beyond which I could see. III. Desire Cattleya in a jar of water. A door opens. A bee alights on the lip vermilion shut eye still water no glass the throat is dirt the heart goes up in air IV. The Back Yard Out of blueness the hummingbird in the privet The silence shafts the Sky and you can hear a cat yawning (missiles moving to Griffiss) scarf of chartreuse drying like a caterpillar The seeds in the heart are like plovers (don't try flying with them) lost inland just feel the lift and the horizon is the color of raspberries fermenting in the shed But then the hummingbirds and the air is a flask for henna tulips coils of amber powder down the shaft as if they're spilled from a white rose breaking up in the wind and neither a twig of a birch can measure a distance. V. After the Survivors are Gone I tried to imagine the Vilna ghetto to see a persimmon tree after the flash at Nagasaki because my own tree had been hacked I tried to kiss the lips of Armenia. At the table and the altar we said some words written ages ago Here we settled for just the wine and bread for candles lit and snuffed. Let us remember how the law has failed us. Let us remember the child, naked, waiting to be shot, on a bright day with tulips blooming around the ditch. We shall not forget the earth, the artifact, the particular song the dirt of an idiom things that stick in the ear. Although not here by choice, the slaves brought music to the fields where they toiled and to the homes where they lived. Spirituals and plantation songs became some of the first music identified as the “American” sound. Composers such as Dvorák used these songs as a fundamental element of music relating to “The New World”.
Give Me Jesus In the morning when I rise, in the morning when I rise, In the morning when I rise, give me Jesus. And when I am alone, and when I am alone, And when I am alone, give me Jesus! Give me Jesus! Give me Jesus! You can have all this world, but give me Jesus! And when I come to die, and when I come to die, And when I come to die, give me Jesus! And when the trumpet sounds, and when the trumpet sounds, And when the trumpet sounds, give me Jesus! Give me Jesus! You can have all this world, you can have all this world, You can have all this world, but give me Jesus, give me Jesus, give me Jesus! About Peril (per the composer’s request, this work is to be heard without program notes) In addition to Native American music, Dvorák encouraged American composers to incorporate spirituals, as they were part of “any serious and original school of composition” in America. William Arms Fisher studied with Dvorák at the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. After hearing New World Symphony in Carnegie Hall in 1893, Fisher fell in love with the English Horn melody of the Largo, and adapted it into a spiritual. Fisher was a champion of music education, and wrote in his article “Music in a Changing World” that music is important to every community – a concept celebrated with tonight’s program. Fisher died in Brookline MA in 1948.
Goin' Home I'm a-goin' home; Quiet-like, some still day, I'm jes' goin' home. It's not far, jes' close by, Through an open door; Work all done, care laid by, Gwine to fear no more. Mother's there, 'spectin' me, Father's waitin' too. Lots o' folk gather'd there, All the friends I knew, All the friends I knew. I'm goin' home! Nothin lost, all's gain, No more fret nor pain. No more stumblin' on the way, No more longin' for the day, Gwine to roam no more! Mornin' star lights the way, Res'less dream all done; Shadows gone, break o' day, Real life jes' begun. Dere's no break, ain't no end, Jes' a-livin' on; Wide awake, with a smile Goin' on and on. Goin' home, goin' home, I'm jes' goin' home, It's not far, jes' close by Through an open door. I'm a-goin' home, I'm jes' goin' Goin' home, goin' home, goin' home, home! Gian Carlo Menotti was an Italian American composer who came to this country as a young boy, alone, to attend Curtis Institute for Music. He didn’t speak English, he had no family here. Through the kindness of students such as Samuel Barber, he found his way, and established the United States as his home. In The Saint of Bleecker Street, he explores the divide felt by immigrants who want to belong to their new communities, but also feel the pull of their motherland. Some succeed by identifying with both places; others may feel like they don’t belong anywhere. Menotti often wrestled with conflict between faith and skepticism in his own life, and this struggle appears in many of his works. Annina and her brother Michele live in an Italian neighborhood in New York. She is a sickly girl, but has great religious faith and plans to become a nun. Michele is a skeptic, who believes he is rejected by his neighbors, as well as his countrymen who remain it Italy. In this excerpt, it is Good Friday, and Annina, who carries the stigmata*, is to be brought from her bedroom into the living room of the apartment she shares with Michele. The townspeople have waited for her, hoping to be healed by the stigmata. Finally she appears, and the people kneel in awe, praying. The vision begins: we are transported by Annina to the site of the crucifixion of Jesus. We experience her fear, the angry throngs of people, Mary’s pain as she watches her son being tortured, and the agony of the spikes as they are driven into Jesus’ palms. With a final shriek, she falls back, unconscious, as the vision is ended and her hands bleed. The neighbors look upon her with wonder and trepidation, until suddenly, the crowd becomes a mob, pushing, shouting, demanding a turn to touch the girl, to be blessed. This scene ends when Michele bursts into their home and throws all of the believers out into the street. * Stigmata are wounds or marks that correspond with those found on crucified Jesus. Those afflicted by the stigmata may experience one or all of the wounds, which are said to be painful and often bleed. Followers believe that they can be healed, cured, or helped in some way by the afflicted while experiencing the stigmata. The occurrences are often at the liturgical time of the crucifixion, but have been reported at other times as well. One of the most famous afflicted was Padre Pio, whom Menotti made a pilgrimage to meet, but was disappointed in the unfriendly reception he received from the Padre.
The Saint of Bleecker Street (excerpt) Neighbors: Salve Virgo florens. Mater illibata. Regina clementiae. Stellis coronata. Super omnes angelos puraet immacolata. Atque ad regis dexteram stans veste diamata per te Mater gratiae dulcis spes reorum fulgens stella maris. Annina: Oh, sweet Jesus, spare me this agony. Too great a pain is this for one so weak. Ah, my aching heart, must you again withstand the trial? Where am I? Who are these people? When have I seen this road before, when this barren hill? What is this drunken crowd waiting for? Ah, dreadful presentiment! Eager and loud they pitch and sway under the festival sun. What do they want? What are they waiting for? I cannot see. Eh! Don't push me. Oh! Oh! I see now, I see now! Oh, blinding sight! Oh, pain! Oh, love! They come up the bending road in golden armor, the soldiers, and among them a purple cloak. My Jesus! How large a cross for one man to bear! Dust in His mouth and salt of bitter tears. His cheeks ribboned with blood shed by the sharp and cruel crown. Ah! But His eyes! Whoever saw in a man's eyes such patient love? Ah! He falters. They are on Him with whips. He struggles on again. Someone is weeping. Where? I see now a group of wailing women standing behind the crowd. Weakened by weeping, they sway like reeds as they slowly move. Tall amongst them, Her eyes deepened by pain, the Holy Virgin stands. Why, Mary, why did you come? No cross can weigh nor nail can pierce as can a mother's sorrow. Why, Mary, why did you come? O, women, take her home. When our God will die, only her son will bear the agony. Oh, take her, take her home. It is her very flesh that will be torn by spear and nail. Oh, take her, take her home. Oh women, take her home. No hill was ever higher. The whole world can see the Son of God, sweet Jesus, lying there. His palm is now held open. Those Hands that gave us all, by us are to be pierced. Soldier, soldier, have mercy on Him. For He alone is your Saviour. The nail is held in place. The huge hammer is raised. Ahhhh! Neighbors: Oh, how pale her cheeks! Christ has died! Look! The stigmata! The miracle has happened. The holy wounds. The holy wounds are bleeding. Let me touch her, let me! Oh! Eh! Don't push me. Get away! Let me touch her! I'm a very sick woman, and my husband has no money and my children have no clothing. Oh! It is my turn now! Bless me! Let me touch her! I was first to come here. I've been waiting since this morning! Oh, oh, oh! It is my turn now! Bless me! Michele: Stop it!! THE SAINT OF BLEECKER STREET By Gian Carlo Menotti Copyright © 1978 by G. Schirmer, Inc. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Rerserved. Used by Permission The text of Reincarnations [the set of three pieces from which The Coolin is taken] has a double history. James Stephens (1882-1950) was an Irish author writing in English whose output was dominated by nostalgia and melancholy over lost traditional Ireland. Two of these texts are "after the Irish of Raftery," i.e., they are translated and reworked from songs in the Irish language – what we call Gaelic – by the musician/poet Antoine O Reachtabhra, transliterated as Anthony Raftery. Raftery (1784-1835) was among the last of the great blind Irish harpists. Irish culture had a great bardic tradition with no meaningful distinction between song and poetry, and many of the greatest bards were blind. (The traditional self-accompaniment for the bard was the harp.) Harpists wandered from court to court, performing and improvising songs, taking maximum advantage of the elaborate code of aristocratic hospitality. Among the most common genres were songs of praise, the lament, the extended poetic insult, and the vision song. In setting these words to music, Barber restores them to their original purpose, not as poems to be read but as lyrics for song. www.uabchoirs.blogspot.com, written by Philip Copeland In choosing The Coolin, we hope to share the essence of the large Irish population in Boston through the natural marriage of text and music.
The Coolin And we will talk, until Talk is a trouble, too, Out on the side of the hill; And nothing is left to do, but an eye to look into an eye, And a hand in a hand to slip; And a sigh to answer a sigh, A hand in a hand to slip, a sigh to answer a sigh, And a lip to find out a lip! And an eye, and a hand, and a sigh, and a lip, a sigh. What if the night be black! And the air on the mountain chill! Where the goat lies down in her track, And all but the fern is still. Stay with me, under my coat! And we will drink our fill Of the milk of the white goat, Out on the side of the hill! Ba Mir Bistu Sheyn (To Me You're Beautiful) is a popular song from the 1932 Yiddish musical,I Would If I Could. The original version of the song is really a dialogue between two lovers who share lines of the song. In 1937, African American performers Johnnie and George sang the song at the Apollo theater. Composer Sammy Cahn heard the piece and loved it. He acquired the rights, and with Saul Chaplin rewrote the lyrics in English with swing rhythms. Cahn hired the still unknown Andrews Sisters to perform the song (1937), and it became the recording that earned them the first ever gold record by a female vocal group. Ba Mir Bistu Sheyn (I Think You’re Beautiful) (sung in Yiddish) —Jacob Jacobs It is common knowledge that Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim set this “modern” Romeo and Juliet story about rival New York street gangs. The clash between the white working-class Jets, and the Puerto Rican Sharks comes to a head when Tony, from the Jets, falls in love with Maria, the sister of the leader of the Sharks. What is less known is that the original conception in 1947 was for a musical called “East Side Story”, that focused on the conflict between an Irish American Roman Catholic family and a Jewish family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, during the Easter-Passoverseason. The girl was to be a Holocaust survivor, and the Catholic Jets were to be anti-Semetic. The final version as was delayed over ten years by scheduling conflicts and artistic disagreements. Somewhere Peace and quiet and open air wait for us somewhere. There's a time for us, Someday a time for us, Time together with time to spare, time to learn, time to care, Someday. Somewhere We'll find a new way of living, We'll find a way of forgiving, Somewhere. There's a place for us, A time and place for us, Hold my hand and we're halfway there, Hold my hand and I'll take you there. Somehow. Someday. Somewhere. Prior to the performance, members of Calliope’s brass section will perform Armenian pieces by Alan Hovhaness.
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