TRACKS

Lumina features the premiere recordings of three multi-movement choral works composed between 2002 and 2016. All are connected to the Christmas season, grow out of my love of medieval and Renaissance music, and are shaped by my experience as an early music singer.

The recording opens with three settings of English carols based on anonymous fifteenth-century texts.

There Is No Rose was composed in 2002 while I was attending the European American Musical Alliance Summer Institute in Paris and was premiered that same summer at the Église Saint-Séverin. Adam Lay Ybounden was composed in 2004 and premiered in A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols by the Choir of the Church of the Advent, directed by Edith Ho. Shortly after the work was published in 2006, Frederick Binkholder, Artistic Director of the Capitol Hill Chorale, contacted me to ask whether I might have a third carol to complement There Is No Rose and Adam Lay Ybounden. That conversation led to the commissioning of I Sing of a Maiden, premiered by the Capitol Hill Chorale in 2007. I have since written dozens of works for the Chorale and have served as their Composer in Residence since 2014. I Sing of a Maiden is dedicated to my daughter, Marika, who was born shortly after the premiere.

Vidimus Stellam, the central work on the recording, was commissioned by Robert Russell and ChoralArt of Portland, Maine, with four additional choirs partnering in the commission: the Capitol Hill Chorale, Georgetown University Concert Choir, Manchester Choral Society, and the National Lutheran Choir. ChoralArt requested a cantata for choir and brass using Latin texts, inspired by Daniel Pinkham’s Christmas Cantata (1957). Pinkham was one of my teachers and principal mentors during my studies at the New England Conservatory, and I was honored to take on the commission.

As a longtime resident of New England, I am keenly aware of the slow descent into darkness each autumn, as daylight dwindles to fewer than nine hours near the winter solstice. Catching the available light becomes a daily preoccupation. In selecting texts for Vidimus Stellam, I was drawn to sacred Christmas texts that explore the theme of light emerging from darkness. That theme became the organizing principle of the cantata, which unfolds as a meditation on the theme of light, following it through the seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.

Annunciation was commissioned by St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Rockport, Massachusetts, in celebration of the parish’s 125th anniversary. The text is adapted from Jeannette Lindholm’s poem Triptych. The first movement focuses on the day of Mary’s encounter with Gabriel, beginning with her greeting the day “as days before” and moving toward Gabriel’s appearance “outside the door.” I conceived the three-movement work to approximate the visual form of a triptych altarpiece, with a longer central panel framed by two shorter movements. The central movement depicts the traditional annunciation scene: Gabriel’s voice in Latin (“Ave Maria”), followed by Mary’s response (“How can this be…”). While the first movement portrays the moment before the annunciation, the third reflects upon it.

My thanks to Donny Slater, whose photographs of the Convento San Bernardino in Valladolid, Mexico, appear throughout the album artwork of Lumina. These images capture the warm embrace of light that is a unifying element of all the music on this recording.

01 THERE IS NO ROSE
There is no rose of such virtue
As is the rose that bare Jesu.
Alleluia.

For in this rose contained was
Heaven and earth in little space.
Res miranda.

By that rose we may well see
There be one God in Persons Three.
Pares forma.

The angels sung the shepherds to,
“Gloria in excelsis Deo.”
Gaudeamus.

Then leave we all this worldly mirth
And follow we this joyous birth.
Transeamus.

02 I SING OF A MAIDEN
I sing of a maiden
That is makeless
King of all kings
To her son she ches.

He came all so still
Where his mother was,
As dew in April
That falleth on the grass.

He came all so still
To his mother’s bow’r,
As dew in April
That falleth on the flow’r.

He came all so still
Where his mother lay,
As dew in April
That falleth on the spray.

Mother and maiden
Was never none but she;
Well may such a lady
God’s mother be.

03 ADAM LAY YBOUNDEN
Adam lay ybounden,
Bounden in a bond;
Four thousand winter
Thought he not too long.

And all was for an apple,
An apple that he took,
As clerkès finden
Written in their book.

Ne had the apple taken been,
The apple taken been,
Ne had never our lady
Abeen heavene queen.

Blessed be the time
That apple taken was,
Therefore we moun singen
Deo gracias!

04 VIDIMUS STELLAM: I. O ORIENS
O Oriens, splendor lucis aeternae, et sol justitiae:
veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris.

O Rising Star, splendor of light eternal, and sun of righteousness:
come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness.

05 VIDIMUS STELLAM: II. RORATE CAELI
Rorate caeli desuper,
et nubes pluant justum.
Aperiatur terra,
et germinet Salvatorem.

Drop down heavens from above,
and let the clouds pour down righteousness.
Let the earth be opened,
and send forth a Savior.

06 VIDIMUS STELLAM: III. HODIE CHRISTUS NATUS EST
Hodie Christus natus est;
hodie Salvator apparuit;
hodie in terra canunt Angeli,
laetantur Archangeli;
hodie exsultant justi, dicentes:
Gloria in excelsis Deo, alleluia.

Today Christ is born,
today the Savior has appeared,
today the Angels sing on earth,
the Archangels rejoice:
today the righteous rejoice, saying:
“Glory to God in the highest. Alleluia!”

07 VIDIMUS STELLAM: IV. SURGE ILLUMINARE
Surge, illuminare Jerusalem:
quia gloria Domini super te orta est.

Rise, shine Jerusalem:
for the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.

08 VIDIMUS STELLAM: V. VIDIMUS STELLAM
Vidimus stellam ejus in Oriente,
et venimus cum muneribus
adorare Dominum.

Venit lumen tuum, Jerusalem,
et gloria Domini super te orta est;
et ambulabunt gentes in lumine tuo.

We have seen his star in the East,
and have come with gifts
to adore the Lord.

Your light is come, O Jerusalem,
and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you,
and the nations shall walk in your light.

09 ANNUNCIATION: I. SHE MET THE DAY
She met the day
as days before—
a cup of milk,
a crust of bread,
bare feet upon
the clean-swept floor.
She planned her day
as days before—
the empty jug,
a tattered rug,
stray threads within
a cluttered drawer.
Then Gabriel
outside the door.

10 ANNUNCIATION: II. AVE MARIA
Ave Maria,
gratia plena,
Dominus tecum,
benedicta tu
in mulieribus.
How can this be,
this quiet, gentle grace
that visits us
within a word,
a welcome,
or embrace. . .

11 ANNUNCIATION: III. ALL SHALL BE WELL
All shall be well,
and all shall be well.
Within this grace
the promise and
the blessing dwell—
Emmanuel.
Emmanuel,
Emmanuel.

Soprano
Julia Baker
Natalie Ingrisano
Margaret Obenza
Ruth Schauble

Alto
Sarra Sharif Doyle
Erica Dunkle
Lauren Kastanas
Sophia Nash

Tenor
Orrin Doyle
Samuel Faustine
Carson Lott
Chad DeMaris

Bass
Clayton Moser
Evan Norberg
Matthew Peterson
Jonathan Silvia

Brass
Trumpet 1: Sarah Viens
Trumpet 2: Bruce Daugherty
Horn: Kyli White
Trombone: Patrick Raichart
Bass Trombone: Benn Hansson