Concert Program

SONG OF MYSELF, 1 – WALT WHITMAN

Invocation:
A Blade of Grass, from Terra Nostra                                                            Stacy Garrop (b. 1969)

Mary Beth Bennett & Joni Hafner, soloists

Act I: Great are the Myths

INTRODUCTION TO LEAVES OF GRASS – W. WHITMAN

Great are the Myths*                                                                                    S. Riley Brule (b. 2000)

On the Beach at Night Alone                                                               Stephen Chatman (b. 1950)

SONG OF MYSELF, 2 – W. WHITMAN

Spirit                                                                                                               Greg Simon (b. 1985)

OLD WALT – LANGSTON HUGHES

All Seems Beautiful                                                                                      Eric Whitacre (b. 1970)

A Jubilant Song                                                                             Norman Dello Joio (1913-2008)

Malerie Henry, soloist

—short pause—

Act II: I Stop Somewhere, Waiting for You

SONG OF MYSELF, 51 – WALT WHITMAN

A Song of Joys                                                                                           Nick Omiccioli (b. 1982)

Sarah Elliott, soloist

WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN’D ASTRONOMER – W. WHITMAN

To Sit and Dream                                                                                Rosephanye Powell (b. 1962)

THE SUMMER DAY – MARY OLIVER

Weave In, My Hardy Life                                                                           Damien Geter (b. 1980)

My Hand in Yours, So                                                                              Robert Convery (b. 1954)

A PACT – EZRA POUND

Gitanjali Chants                                                                                Craig Hella Johnson (b. 1962)

Recessional:

A Blade of Grass/I Bequeath Myself , from Terra Nostra                            Stacy Garrop (b. 1969)

Sarah Elliott & Paige Foelber, soloists

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Members of the Northwest Chamber Chorus
Jeremy Edelstein, conductor
Youngjin Joo, accompanist
Carly Thornburg, executive director

Sopranos  Dori Baunsgard  Betsy Brockman Sarah Elliott Christi Everett Paige Foelber ** Joni Hafner * Auralee MacColl Carter Dalia Taylor Taryn Wagner Jones Catie Wilson

Altos  Mary Beth Bennett Wendy Boeker Shireen Deboo Nancy Fisher Malerie Henry Susan Jenkins Lauren Sandven ** Cindy Shultz Maggie Smith Carly Thornburg Alison Walker *

Tenors  Mike Anthis Michael Bonner  Matt Everett Rachel Flamm * Tim Gallagher Pete Jones Mark Lee Ben Rider *, ** Will Tollefson Alan Zhu

Basses  Alex Bachwich Adam Brown ** Joshua Horowitz Michael Huber Matthew Peterson Ethan Roday * Chris Shultz Chris Steckler Steve Tanimoto

* = board member
** = section leader

Containing Multitudes: Celebrating the Legacy of Walt Whitman

Since the groundbreaking 1855 publication of Leaves of Grass, Whitman’s vision of humanity has inspired scores of composers and poets. His revolutionary voice singing praises of all—in free verse!—sparked the interest of his contemporaries, but also controversy: he was deemed too obscene, or too focused on the working class, or too pretentious. Nevertheless, his poems became the subject of a friendly composition competition between Ralph Vaughan Williams & Gustav Holst; they angered and delighted the likes of Ezra Pound & T.S. Eliot, Federico Garcia Lorca & Allen Ginsberg, Mary Oliver & Nikki Giovanni. Whitman’s legacy in our American identity is profound and wide-reaching. He laid the groundwork for an American “voice,” for how we view ourselves as a nation, and for a worldview that was more expansive and inclusive than most of his time.

Bookending our program are two movements from a piece by Stacy Garrop called Terra Nostra, which relies on the central metaphor of Whitman’s first masterpiece, “Song of Myself.” We hear it in the opening lines of A Blade of Grass: it is “the journeywork of the stars.” Something as simple as the grass can be cosmic, a single piece that’s part of a larger whole—much like humanity. In Act I, we journey with Whitman through a variety of awe-inspiring and joy-giving experiences. To start, we see his sparkling optimism about the world in Riley Brule’s equally effervescent Great are the Myths—a world premiere written for this concert. Then, Stephen Chatman underscores the “vast similitude” that “interlocks all” with On the Beach At Night Alone in an assured setting of a clear-eyed poem. From the cosmic, we shift to the specific with Greg Simon’s Spirit, a driving, forceful piece praising the life-giving forces of nature. Conversely, Eric Whitacre tenderly sets All Seems Beautiful, showing us a more intimate side to Whitman’s appreciation of the world and himself—until we launch into Norman Dello Joio’s exuberant, explosive A Jubilant Song.

Nick Omiccioli’s companion piece to the Dello Joio, A Song of Joys, opens Act II with the same reckless abandon, and a dash of the atmospheric. Rosephanye Powell’s To Sit and Dream, introduces us to a new poet: Langston Hughes, who plays off of Whitmanian themes. Powell’s writing mirrors the poem’s dichotomy of learning about the world and going out to do things. Damien Geter reminds us further with Weave In, My Hardy Life, in which he says Whitman “expresses the need (and desire) to consistently fight for causes that lead to a more equitable society.” The dense, interwoven writing represents the ways in which “we must lift our individual voices for the good of the order.” Our final poets echo Walt in their own idiosyncratic ways: first, Hart Crane, a young, gay high modernist who reaches out to grab his (metaphorically) outstretched hand in My Hand in Yours, So. Robert Convery sets the choir as Hart, and a clarinet that could be seen as the spirit of Walt, darting in and out of the texture. Craig Hella Johnson’s mystical Gitanjali Chants sets text from the titular work by Rabindranath Tagore, a later Bengali contemporary of Whitman with a similarly universalist and cosmic scope. He allows us to ask ourselves “to what palace gate have [we been] brought in the evening at the end of [our] journey?”

In our turbulent times, we can take solace that those palace gates would be open to all in the poetry of Walt Whitman. If we listen to his “barbaric yawp,” we know that we are large, we contain multitudes; that the tender reach of kindred spirits flows across time and space; that we exist as we are—and that is enough. Impossible though it may be to truly capture Walt’s spirit, we invite you to come stop with him (and us!) —you’ll surely come away with something to carry with you.

— Jeremy Edelstein, March 2025, Seattle, WA

Invocation:
A Blade of Grass (octavo) – Stacy Garrop
Mary Beth Bennett & Joni Hafner, soloists
A blade of grass is the journeywork of the stars.
Long and long has the grass been growing,
Long and long has the rain been falling,
Long has the globe been rolling round..

Part I: Great are the Myths
Great are the Myths – Riley Brule
Great are the myths…. I too delight in them.

Great is today, and beautiful,
It is good to live in this age…. there was never any better.

Great are the plunges and throes and triumphs and falls of democracy,
Great the reformers with their lapses and screams,
Great the daring and venture of sailors on new explorations.

[Great are yourself and myself,]
We are just as good and bad as the oldest and youngest or any,
What the best and worst did we could do,
What they felt.. do not we feel it in ourselves?
What they wished.. do we not wish the same?

Great is youth, and [equally] great is old age…. great are the day and night;
Great is wealth, and great is poverty…. great is expression and great is silence.

– Leaves of Grass, 1855 edition

On the Beach at Night Alone – Stephen Chatman
On the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future.

A vast similitude interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,
All distances of place however wide,
All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,
All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe,
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d,
And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.

– Leaves of Grass, 1867 edition
Originally published in 1856 as “Clef Poem”

Spirit (TTBB) – Greg Simon
Written in Platte Canyon, Colorado

O Spirit! O Spirit that form’d this scene,
These tumbled rock-piles grim and red,
These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks,
These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness,

These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own,
I know thee, savage spirit—we have communed together,
Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons of their own;
Was’t charged against my chants they had forgotten art?
To fuse within themselves its rules precise and delicatesse?
The lyrist’s measur’d beat, the wrought-out temple’s grace—column and polish’d arch forgot?
But thou that revelest here—spirit that form’d this scene,
They have remember’d thee.

All Seems Beautiful – Eric Whitacre
[From this hour, freedom!]
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of [limits and] imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master total and absolute,
Listening to others, [and] considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.

I inhale great draughts of space,
The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.

I am larger, better than I thought,
I did not know I held so much goodness.

All seems beautiful to me,
I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me, I would do the same to you,

I will recruit for myself and you as I go,
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,
I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,
Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,
Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.

– “Song of the Open Road,” 5, 1867 edition
[Originally published in 1856] as “Poem of the Road”

A Jubilant Song – Norman Dello Joio
Malerie Henry, soloist
O! Listen to a jubilant song!
The joy of our spirit is uncaged,
It darts like lightning!
My soul it darts like lightning!

For we sing to the joys of youth,
And the joy of a glad light-beaming day.
Our spirit sings a jubilant song
that is to life full of music,
A life full of concord, of music, a life full of harmony.

We sing prophetic joys of lofty ideals,
A universal love awaking in the hearts of men.

O! to have life, a poem of new joys to shout!
To dance, to shout, leap, to dance and exult, shout and leap.
O! to realize space and flying clouds,
O! to realize space, the sun and moon.
O! to be rulers of life,
O! to be rulers of destiny.

– adapted by the composer from “A Song of Joys,” 1892 edition (annotations here)
Originally published in 1860 as “Poem of Joys”

Act II: I Stop Somewhere, Waiting for You
A Song of Joys – Nick Omiccioli
Sarah Elliott, soloist
Jubilant! Jubilant!
O to sing the most jubilant song!
Full of music – full of joy
Full of concord and harmony!
For the voices of animals,
For the swiftness and balance of fish,
Dropping of raindrops – rays of sunshine,
For the motion of waves in a song!

O to go back to the place where I was born,
To hear the birds sing once more,
O to come alive!
O to sing and dance!
O to clap your hands!
O to shout!
To emerge and be of the sky
Of the sun and moon, as one of them
Rolling of thunder – darts of lightning – flying of clouds
O to have life henceforth, a poem of new joys!
…as we sing the most jubilant song of joy!

– adapted by the composer from “A Song of Joys,” 1892 edition
Originally published in 1860 as “Poem of Joys”

To Sit and Dream (SSAA) – Rosephanye Powell
To sit and dream, to sit and read,
To sit and learn about the world
Outside our world of here and now—
our problem world—
To dream of vast horizons of the sould
Through dreams made whole,
Unfettered free—help me!
All you who are dreamers, too,
Help me make our world anew.
I reach out my hands to you.

– To You, (1965) by Langston Hughes

Weave in, My Hardy Life – Damien Geter
Weave in! weave in, my hardy life,
Weave yet a soldier strong and full, for great campaigns to come;
Weave in red blood, weave sinews in like ropes, the senses, sight weave in,
Weave lasting sure! weave day and night the weft, the warp, incessant weave! tire not!
(We know not what the use, O life! nor know the aim, the end—nor really aught we know;
But know the work, the need goes on, and shall go on—the death-envelop’d march of peace as well as war goes on;)
For great campaigns of peace the same, the wiry threads to weave;
We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave.

– “Weave In, My Hardy Life,” 1871 edition
Originally published in 1867

My Hand in Yours, So – Robert Convery
And now, as launched in abysmal cupolas of space,
Toward endless terminals, Easters of speeding light —
Vast engines outward veering with seraphic grace
On clarion cylinders pass out of sight
To course that span of consciousness thou’st named
The Open Road — thy vision is reclaimed!
What heritage thou’st signalled to our hands!

And see! the rainbow’s arch — how shimmeringly stands
Above the Cape’s ghoul-mound, O joyous seer!
Recorders ages hence, yes, they shall hear
In their own veins uncancelled thy sure tread
And read thee by the aureole ’round thy head
Of pasture-shine, Panis Angelicus !
yes, [Walt,]
Afoot again, and onward without halt, —
Not soon, nor suddenly, — no, never to let go
My hand
in yours,
[Walt Whitman —]
so —

– V. Cape Hatteras, The Bridge, (1930) by Hart Crane

Gitanjali Chants – Craig Hella Johnson
Ever in my life have I sought thee with my songs. It was they who led me from door to door, and
with them have I felt about me, searching and touching my world.
It was my songs that taught me all the lessons I ever learnt; they showed me secret paths, they
brought before my sight many a star on the horizon of my heart.
They guided me all the day long to the mysteries of the country of pleasure and pain, and, at
last, to what palace gate have they brought me in the evening at the end of my journey?

– from Gitanjali, (1910) by Rabindranath Tagore

Recessional:
A Blade of Grass (Terra Nostra Cover) – Stacy Garrop
Sarah Elliott & Paige Foelber, soloists
A blade of grass is the journeywork of the stars.
Long and long has the grass been growing,
Long and long has the rain been falling,
Long has the globe been rolling round.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you [nevertheless],
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you

– Leaves of Grass, 1855 edition