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Gwendolyn Brooks Settings (2018-2020)

For Treble Chorus and Orchestra
Text by Gwendolyn Brooks

2(2 dbl. pic.).2.2.1/2.2.2.0/cel./hp./4 perc. strings
World premiere by the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, Stilian Kirov, conductor; Anima – Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus, Evan Bruno, artistic director, William Buhr, accompanist; and The Chicago High School for the Arts, Charles Taylor, music director, Andrew Lawrence, accompanist, 16 March 2024.
Duration: 30 minutes

Co-commissioned by Anima – Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus and the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra.

Treble Chorus can be comprised of a mix of adult sopranos, mezzo-sopranos, altos, with youth girl and boy sopranos, mezzo-sopranos, and altos.

This commission and associated activities are partially supported by a 2019 grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency and Illinois Humanities.

Informal reference recording is available for private listening. If you would like to review the recording please Contact Augusta Read Thomas.

 

TEXT BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS

"BRONZEVILLE GIRLS AND BOYS”

Reprinted By Consent of Brooks Permissions.

 

I shall create! [1]
Each body has its art...[2]

 

Tommy

I put a seed into the ground
And said, “I’ll watch it grow.”
I watered it and cared for it
As well as I could know.

One day I walked in my back yard,
And oh, what did I see!
My seed had popped itself right out,
Without consulting me.

Live in the along. [3]:

To be in love
Is to touch things with a lighter hand. [4]:

 

Cynthia in
The Snow

It SUSHES.
It hushes
The loudness in the road.
It flitter-twitters,
And laughs away from me.
It laughs a lovely whiteness,
And whitely whirs away,
To be
Some otherwhere,
Still white as milk or shirts.
So beautiful it hurts.

If you wanted a poem you only need to look out of a window. [5]:

Poetry is life distilled. [6]:

If you wanted a poem you only need to look out of a window.  Reprise [7]:

Live in the along.  Reprise

Your sky may burn with light,
While mine,
Spreads beautiful to darkness. [8]:

 

Robert, Who is Often
a Stranger to Himself

Do you ever look in the looking-glass
And see a stranger there?
A child you know and do not know,
Wearing what you wear?

Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies.
And be it gash or gold it will not come
Again [9]:

 

From De Koven
I’d keep you with me always.
You’d shine both night and day.

 

Mexie and Bridie

A tiny tea-party
Is happening today.
Pink cakes, and nuts and bon-bons on
A tiny, shiny tray.

It’s out within the weather,
Beneath the clouds and sun.
And pausing ants have peeked upon,
As birds and God have done.

Mexie’s in her white dress,
And Bridie’s in her brown.
There are no finer Ladies
Tea-ing in the town.

Live in the along.  reprise

We are each other's magnitude and bond. [10]:

 

From De Koven
Ah
night and day

 

Marie Lucille

That clock is ticking
Me away!
The me that only
Yesterday
Ate peanuts, jam and
Licorice
Is gone already.
And this is
‘Cause nothing’s putting
Back, each day,
The me that clock is
Ticking away.

 

The Admiration
of Willie

Grown folks are wise
About tying ties
And baking cakes
And chasing aches,
Building walls
And finding balls
And making planes
And cars and trains –
And kissing children into bed
After their prayers are said.

 

From De Koven
Ah
Shine Star Shine!


Reprinted By Consent of Brooks Permissions.

1. Boy Breaking Glass
2. Quote
3. Report From Part One
4. To Be In Love
5. The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks
6. Poetry Is Life Distilled, biography of Gwendolyn Brooks by Christine M. Hill
7. Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward (Among them Nora and Henry III)
8. Corners on the Curving Sky
9. Annie Allen
10. Published in “Family Pictures” (1971)
PROGRAM NOTE

Music for me is an embrace of the world, a way to open myself to being alive in the world – in my body, in my sounds, and in my mind. I care deeply about musicality, imagination, craft, clarity, dimensionality, an elegant balance between material and form, and empathy with the performing musicians as well as everyone who works in the presenting organizations.

Gwendolyn Brooks Settings was composed between 2018 and 2020. Collaborating with the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, Stilian Kirov, conductor; Anima – Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus, Evan Bruno, artistic director, William Buhr, accompanist; and The Chicago High School for the Arts, Charles Taylor, music director, Andrew Lawrence, accompanist, has been an exhilarating experience. I am grateful to the many extraordinary colleagues who have made this partnership possible. The magnificence and energy of massed vocal and orchestral resources is humbling, inspiring, and exemplifies teamwork. 

I am deeply thankful to Cedille Records, James Ginsburg, president, Bill Maylone recording engineer, and to the whole Cedille Records team for recording Gwendolyn Brooks Settings for release.

In 2018, Dr. Charles Sundquist, the former artistic director, Anima – Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus, generously proposed to me the idea of my making a large-scale composition for chorus and orchestra which would set texts from Gwendolyn Brooks’ famous book entitled Bronzeville Girls and Boys.

Gwendolyn Brooks is legendary literary icon. I love her work and was (and remain) thrilled by this opportunity to compose Gwendolyn Brooks Settings. By consent of Brooks Permissions, I was given formal permission to set and reprint Brooks’ inspiring words.

Across the thirty-minute composition, which is formed in six parts that are performed without a pause, each lasting circa five minutes, the music, the singers, and the musicians paint sonic images of the deeper meanings of the texts. Each part, sub-section, and musical arc captures the aura of Brooks words.

Organic and at every level concerned with transformations and connections, the carefully sculpted, fashioned, and notated musical materials are agile and spirited. Their flexibility allows pathways to braid harmonic, rhythmic, timbral, and contrapuntal elements which are constantly transformed. The music traverses sound words that are energized, balletic, colorful, vibrant, reflective, playful, majestic, intimate, lyrical, layered and reverberating with overtly cantabile, melodic resonance, pirouettes, and fulcrum points.

Music’s eternal quality is its capacity for change, transformation, and renewal. No one composer, musical style, school of thought, technical practice, or historical period can claim a monopoly on music’s truths. I believe music feeds our souls. Unbreakable is the power of art to build community. Humanity has worked, and will always work, together to further music’s flexible, diverse capacity and innate power.

Gwendolyn Brooks Settings was co-commissioned by Anima – Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus and the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra with partial support from Illinois Arts Council Agency and Illinois Humanities.

DOODLE OF THE MAP OF FORM AND AURA AS DRAWN BY THE COMPOSER
 

Gwendolyn Brooks
 

Gwendolyn Brooks
 

Anima – Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus and their Director Charles Sundquist
 

Evan Bruno, Artistic Director
Anima – Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus

Stilian Kirov
 

Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra
 

To obtain examination or performance material for this
Augusta Read Thomas work, please contact Nimbus Music Publishing.