Change My Sorrow Into Song
Change My Sorrow Into Song
From the concert, "Home: Where is Your Heart?" Oct. 21, 2017, at the Lawrence Memorial Chapel in Appleton, Wisconsin: newVoices choir, under the direction of Dr. Phillip A. Swan.
Raymund Ocampo, conductor
This piece was generously commissioned by a consortium of choruses to benefit Chorus America, the advocacy, research, and leadership development organization that advances the choral field.
AUGUSTANA CHOIR
Jon Hurty, Conductor
BACH SOCIETY OF DAYTON
John Neely, Music Director
CHORAL ARTS ENSEMBLE OF ROCHESTER
Rick Kvam, Artistic Director
HEARTLAND VOICES
Dr. John G Slawson, Artistic Director/Principal Conductor
LINN-BENTON COMMUNITY COLLEGE CHAMBER CHOIR
Raymund Ocampo, Music Program Chair and Director of Choral Studies
MASTERWORKS CHORALE (CA)
Dr. Bryan Baker, Artistic Director
NASHOBA VALLEY CHORALE
Anne Watson Born, Director
NEWVOICES
Phillip A. Swan, Artistic Director
PORTAGE CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL CHAMBER SINGERS
Cynthia Hunter, Director of Choirs
PROVIDENCE SINGERS
Christine Noel, Artistic Director
TEXAS LUTHERAN UNIVERSITY CHOIR
Dr. Douglas R Boyer, Director, TLU School of Music & Choral Activities
THE CHORAL PROJECT
Daniel Hughes, Artistic Director
THE MICHAEL O'NEAL SINGERS
Michael O'Neal, Founder and Artistic Director
UNIVERSITY UNITARIAN CHURCH
Karen P. Thomas, Director of Music
Change My Sorrow Into Song is a setting of a pastoral and optimistic poem by Sara Teasdale. She uses the image of barley bending in the breezes is compared to overcoming struggle and adversity. This move from pain to joy is echoed in the music, with the feisty and exuberant rhythms and harmonies of Latin jazz. These sunnier moments are contrasted with more startling dissonances between the tonic and leading tone at dramatic moments in the work. The piece ends faster than it began, with strong syncopated accents and a brightness and fire to the final chords.
Like barley bending
In low fields by the sea,
Singing in hard wind
Ceaselessly;
Like barley bending
And rising again,
So would I, unbroken,
Rise from pain;
So would I softly,
Day long, night long,
Change my sorrow
Into song.
-- Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)