Across the Vast, Eternal Sky by Ola Gjeilo serves as a great opener for this concert since it speaks about the canvas that will provide the backdrop for the music that follows. The poet, Charles Anthony Silvestri, wrote that he and Gjeilo, in discussing this poem, came around to the idea of the phoenix, a twist on the theme of rebirth, but here as a means to spiritual growth. This piece, true to the title, is expansive in nature as though one were looking at a never-ending kaleidoscope. The sweeping melodic line blends smoothly and creates a sense of symphonic chorale.

​Scott McKnight – cello

The Sun Never Says, composed by Dan Forrest, is a simple piece with a simple message: the sun never says, “You owe me.”  This soaring setting of Hafiz-inspired poetry by Daniel Ladinsky tells of the matchless beauty of unconditional love, as shown by the sun. It is homophonic throughout with the important words of the text often moved from voice to voice or broken up between the voices.

​Elaine Thaller – alto

Lili Boulanger was the frail sister of the famous composition teacher Nadia Boulanger. She completed Hymne au Soleil (“Hymn to the Sun”) in 1912. This piece is “suffused with impressionism’s parallel chords, and musically mirrors the various words of its text, an excerpt from an exotic play by Casimir Delavigne.” The piece begins and ends with mighty chords in the piano underlying bold homophonic statements from the choir. The second section begins more polyphonically with the choir entering one after the other in describing how the sun is pulled across the sky by “seven steeds with fiery breath.” This is followed by an extended solo for alto voice before it is joined by the choir. A short transition brings the piece back to the same bold homophonic chords in both piano and choir as heard at the beginning. Michael Alder wrote that “ecstatic chords acclaim the sun whose strength makes the colours of the earth shine forth.”  All in all, this piece has lush, expressive harmonies and textural richness.

October Sun, by Daniel Elder, is a love song to a time of the year filled with exquisite beauty. The October sun is depicted as a witness to this transition, living each day as the giver of life and the overseer of earth. As Elder says, “there is a relentless tugging towards the dominant, rarely escaping to a resolution but instead returning to its beginning.” There is a refrain on the words October Sun, but each time it returns it brings with it a new flavour, guiding us through to the inevitability of winter. Elder also says that with the words its last refrains a haunting melody to echo fast away until the spring, “the music ebbs away in a contented state: a harmonic marriage of the beginning and the end, and the season of autumn completely encapsulated under the sun.”

Darà la notte il sol, written by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) is the oldest piece on this concert. This music is an impassioned cry of grief by a loved one whose love has died. Sitting on the tomb of her lover, she cries out that love will endure forever. She hears the sounds of nature—of night-noises of wild animals and wind amongst the forest as joining her in her sighs and moans. The opening statement says that “the sun will light up the earth at night with its light.”

The aurora borealis or the northern lights is a phenomenon in the northern sky that entrances with their colour and constant dancing movements across the night sky. Another piece by Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo, Northern Lights, is more a piece inspired by the northern lights than about the northern lights. This piece was composed in Norway in 2007 and Gjeilo says, “looking out from the attic window that Christmas in Oslo, over a wintry lake under the stars, I was thinking how this terrible beauty is so profoundly reflected in the northern lights, which, having grown up in the southern part of the country, I have only seen once or twice in my life. It is one of the most beautiful natural phenomena I’ve ever witnessed, and has such a powerful, electric quality that must have been both mesmerizing and terrifying to people in the past when no one knew what it was and when much superstition was attached to these experiences.” The text is in Latin and the music has a serenity about it that belies the incredible forces of nature.

Celeste Woloschuk – soprano

Stacey Philipps’ Aurora Borealis is an attempt to re-create in music the qualities of the northern lights. She uses sound to evoke their sweep and dance across the sky, their sudden shimmering changes of direction and intensity. The composer says that “equally important is the use of silence – the unexpected rests and sudden harmonic shifts evoke the unpredictable beauty of the northern lights.”

In 1973, Canadian composer Derek Holman wrote a set of three pieces entitled Weatherscapes. The third piece in that set is entitled Miramachi Lightning. Miramichi is a city in New Brunswick located at the mouth of the Miramachi River. Here, the lightning is represented by the stark and strident lines of the chorus that often fall one upon the other like zigzag flashes of lightning. One can almost hear the crack of the thunder in the accompaniment provided by the piano. The poet, Alfred G. Bailey, “conjures a human equivalency for the storm’s ferocity:  namely, the anger of the aboriginal chiefs who come down out of the hills to express their rage at what has become of their once proud culture.” And as quickly as such storms come, so do they subside as the clouds pass by, break off, and founder into the sea. Not always pleasant to the ear, it is the purpose of what both Bailey and Holman intend that is important.

Ballade to the Moon is the first in a cycle of nocturnes for mixed chorus and piano, “exploring observational and psychological experiences associated with love, nature, darkness, and light.” In the introduction at the front of this piece, the composer writes that “this piece depicts a moonlit walk through woods and fields, while exploring the love felt for the narrator’s surroundings. The beauty of the text is in its obscurity – the narrator could be referring to nature or to a romantic attraction. The night seems to call, ‘Come and dream in me!’ Under deep forest cover, the narrator entreats the stars, ‘O share thy light!’ until the twinkling stars gleam in the open meadow, luring, ‘Come and sing with me!’  Love for the surrounding dusky beauty causes the narrator to weep with joy, with only the moon as witness.”

The author/composer describes this piece as “a simple song of reassurance, as a mother may sing to her child to stave off fear of the darkness and solitude of night. The beauty of the text lies in its dual nature, as it also serves to comfort those who grieve over loss.” The line “the day is done, and gone the sun” has music reminiscent of the beginning of “Taps”, the tune generally played on a bugle or trumpet for military funerals or to signal the end of day. There is great simplicity in this piece which adds to its power. A somewhat romanticized piano part serves as accompaniment.

Lunar Lullaby by Jacob Navrerud is just that – a lulling lullaby to the moon. The text says, “You are my radiant, my celestial child.” There is a waltz feel to the piece created, in part, by the undulating notes of the piano.

The New Moon is a composition by Canadian composer Nicholas Ryan Kelly. The text by Bliss Carman paints beautiful pictures of the seasons and expresses the joy of love in all, while the music provides a colourful accompaniment and flowing choral lines that paint the pictures in sound. There is a growing intensity in the music that occasionally results in passionate outbursts, but for the most part dynamic levels remain soft.

Izar Ederrak is the story of a beautiful, shining star, surrounded by eight angels, one of whom is “lovesick” for the star. Composed by Josu Elberdin (b. 1976) to a Basque text (also sung in the Basque language), this piece has rich textures, a particularly memorable melody, and interesting harmonic choices.

​Dmitri Masich – glockenspiel

Anang (“A Star”) is composed by Canadian composer Andrew Balfour. Balfour indicates that the piece “is dedicated to my wonderful wife, who told me about the Indigenous understanding of the Star People, who are among us, representing where we all came from:  the Universe and the stars. Only some can see them – among them, little children who attract the Star People as the little ones have just emerged from the unknown.” The text is in Ojibwe and English. The piece starts with the choir whispering the word “Anang” before the piano and the glockenspiel enter. There is a mysterious otherworldly quality to this piece. The three main sections each begin with the voices entering closely one after the other, but not at regular intervals.

Kyle Pederson, composer of Stars, writes that “Stars was born out of a life-long fascination with the night sky, and the text is a meditation on the interconnectedness of creation. The light from distant stars takes eons to reach our eyes, connecting us with the ancient past. Many elements that comprise our bodies were cast out of stars millions of years ago. Since we are the ‘stuff of stars’, where will we cast our own light? Whose world will we impact? Harmonically, the piece seeks to evoke the vastness and mystery of space, simultaneously capturing the intimacy of connection.”

Louella Friesen – soprano
Rachelle Friesen – alto

Recently, many composers have created choral compositions set to the poetry of Sara Teasdale. Z. Randall Stroope’s And Sure Stars Shining “seeks to capture that internal ecstasy and ‘beyond the world utopia’ that was the reality the poet so wanted, and seemingly never achieved.” In order to strive for this utopia, one must “make this world of my devising” so as to “find the crystal of peace” and “above me stars I shall find.” Stroope is a master of melody which always stirs the emotions, here, hopefully, so that we can embrace a hope that dreams may someday become a reality.

In 1947 Randall Thompson composed a set of seven pieces called Frostiana which he set to the poetry of Robert Frost. These selections have become very popular with choruses around the world. The final piece in the set is Choose Something Like a Star. The piece opens with the sopranos sustaining a note above the other parts of the chorus, much like a hovering star in the sky. Frost has written an ode to the star and Thompson follows suit with rich harmonies and sustained sections that pay homage to the star in music. The steadfastness of the star is represented by the throbbing pulse of the piano. The piece ends in typical Thompson form with all four voice parts singing a sustained note in their lower registers.