Details

• Duration (min): 9
• Instrumentation: SATB Choir

Score Excerpts

• Score Excerpt 1

Program Notes

This work was commissioned by Elroy Friesen and the University of Manitoba Singers for their 2008 tour of Argentina and Paraguay. The commission was made possible with financial assistance from the Manitoba Arts Council.

Text:

Peso ancestral
Tú me dijiste: no lloró mi padre;
Tú me dijiste: no lloró mi abuelo;
No han llorado los hombres de me raza,
Eran de acero.
Así diciendo te brotó una lágrima
Y me cayó en la boca… más veneno.
Yo no he bebido nunca en otro vaso
Así pequeño.
Débil mujer, pobre mujer que entiende,
Dolor de siglos conocí al beberlo:
Oh, el alma mía soportar no puede
Todo su peso.

1919
Alfonsina Storni (1892-1938)

Ancestral Burden
Once you told me my father never wept;
Once you told me his father never wept;
The men of my line have never wept
They were made of steel.
As you were saying this your cried a tear
That dropped into my mouth… I have never
drunk more of poison than I did
from that little cup.
Vulnerable woman, poor and comprehending woman,
When I tasted it I knew the pain of centuries.
Oh, my soul cannot endure
All of its burden.

translated Andrew Rosing

Details

• Instrumentation: Choir (SATB)

Details

• Duration (min): 10
• Instrumentation: Soloists and SATB Choir

Program Notes

Text

O our Mother the Earth, O our Father the Sky,
Your children are we, and with tired backs
We bring you the gifts that you love.
Then weave for us a garment of brightness;
May the warp be the white light of morning,
May the weft be the red light of evening,
May the fringes be the falling rain,
May the border be the standing rainbow.
Thus weave for us a garment of brightness
That we may walk fittingly where birds sing,
That we may walk fittingly where grass is green,
O our Mother the Earth, O our Father the Sky!

Traditional Tewa

Song of the Sky Loom was commissioned by the University Singers with financial assistance from the Manitoba Arts Council.

Details

• Duration (min): 4
• Instrumentation: SATB Choir

Score Excerpts

• Score Excerpt 1

Sound Samples

Program Notes

Night Prairie was written in the fall of 1995, to fulfill a request from Winnipeg conductor Henry Engbrecht for a new piece for his ensemble The University of Manitoba Singers. Henry requested a short work which would explore timbral and sound effects. I turned, as I often do when looking for texts, to the beautiful and evocative poetry of Dennis Cooley, and found in this case a poem from his 1992 collection This Only Home:

night prairie

an immensity i saw once
: night on the prairies
an enormous sky far as you can see
the earth lets go in yeast
a shrill sun filled
with insects & wind
: all of it — scooped out
a huge excavation of light
so that darkness pours

seas of it
at night fills the land
& at the top
the heavy water
hard as iron
where the torch blows through
: millions of bright insects
:
© 1992 Dennis Cooley – used by permission

In my setting I have tried to capture some of the sense of wonder contained in the poem. To that end I have incorporated invented syllables, whispers and glissandi in the choral writing.

Details

• Duration (min): 7
• Instrumentation: Countertenor, 2 Tenors, Baritone

Score Excerpts

• Score Excerpt 1

Sound Samples

Program Notes

Two Night Pieces is a setting of poetry by Dennis Cooley. The work was commissioned by the Hilliard Ensemble:

David James, Countertenor
John Potter, Tenor
Rogers Covey-Crump, Tenor
Gordon Jones, Baritone

The commission was made possible with financial assistance from the Canada Council.

Details

• Duration (min): 12
• Instrumentation: SATB Choir

Program Notes

anna
               first dance

we walk from streetlight to streetlight
silence to silence
how to speak about the human heart and memory
how to speak about all the rooms we live in

rooms that were cloisters or rooms with lamps and seashells
and empty bottles
rooms with pianos or angels rooms where voices died rooms
that were dance-halls for wildflowers

rooms of prayer or despair rooms of light

memory is a scar I love to touch but will never trust
the future because I was born I trust and can never touch
so I straddle time taking the scraps memory offers and
wanting them again and again

               anna
               second dance

something about all the rooms I have inhabited

rooms with broken windows rooms of rain

the future, because I was born, I trust and can never touch. so
I straddle time, taking the scraps memory offers and wanting
them again and again.

seeking an end to memory

looking for other conversations in other rooms

          Text by Patrick Friesen

Details

• Instrumentation: Soprano, Tenor, Choir (SATB), Piano, Percussion