Choral compositions by composer Dale Trumbore.

Dale Trumbore | Choral Works

Between Water and Air for SATB Chorus & Piano was commissioned and premiered by the USC Chamber Singers. 


TEXT

Surfer Girl 

I’m walking on the beach this brisk November morning,
the bleached sea grass bending in the wind, when there,
up ahead, in the pewter waves, I see a surfer in his wet suit,
sleek as a seal, cutting in and out of the curl, shining in the light. 
This is where the longing starts, the yearning for another life, the one 
where I’m lithe and long-limbed, tanned California gold, 
short tousled hair full of sunshine.  The life where I shoulder my board,
stride into the waves, dive under the breakers, and rise; my head shaking
off water like a golden retriever.  I am waiting for that perfect wave to come, 
so I can crouch up and catch it, my arms out like wings, slicing back 
and forth in the froth, wind at my back, sea’s slick metal polished 
before me.  Nothing more important now than this balance between
water and air, the rhythm of in and out, staying ahead of the break, 
choosing my line like I choose these words, writing my name
on water, writing my name on air.

—Barbara Crooker


PROGRAM NOTE

Barbara Crooker’s poem "Surfer Girl" speaks to the narrator’s reverence for a skill—in this case, surfing—that the narrator isn’t great at, and likely never will be. I can identify; I’ll probably never be a great surfer, despite living in Los Angeles for over a decade. I took a surfing lesson once and could barely stand up on my board. But there’s a genuine, poignant emotion here, too. The “yearning” that the narrator feels while watching a surfer in the waves is accompanied by a recognition of their own talent for writing. By the conclusion of this setting of Barbara's poem, we’re not bitter or jealous that we can’t surf; we’re basking in our own gifts, however we choose to express ourselves.

Between Water and Air

Ring Out, Ye Bells! is a joyous Christmas carol for SATB chorus and piano. This piece sets a text by Paul Laurence Dunbar and was premiered by VocalEssence (Philip Brunelle, director) on December 7, 2013 in Stillwater, MN.

Follow along with the score here: bit.ly/ringoutyebells

Text: 
 Ring out, ye bells!
All Nature swells
With gladness at the wondrous story, --
The world was lorn,
But Christ is born
To change our sadness into glory.

Sing, earthlings, sing!
To-night a King
Hath come from heaven's high throne to bless us.
The outstretched hand
O'er all the land
Is raised in pity to caress us.

Come at his call;
Be joyful all;
Away with mourning and with sadness!
The heavenly choir
With holy fire
Their voices raise in songs of gladness.

The darkness breaks
And Dawn awakes,
Her cheeks suffused with youthful blushes.
The rocks and stones
In holy tones
Are singing sweeter than the thrushes.

Then why should we
In silence be,
When Nature lends her voice to praises;
When heaven and earth
Proclaim the truth
Of Him for whom that lone star blazes?

No, be not still,
But with a will
Strike all your harps and set them ringing;
On hill and heath
Let every breath
Throw all its power into singing!

Ring Out, Ye Bells!

The premiere recording of "Bluebeard's Wife" from Snow White Turns Sixty (Suite) for soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano & percussion was performed by the Boston New Music Initiative with Erin M. Smith, soprano on October 31, 2013 in Boston, MA. Snow White Turns Sixty (Suite) sets three poems featuring twisted or modern updates of traditional fairy tales; this movement features a text by contemporary poet Eileen Moeller.

Bluebeard's Wife (SWT60 Suite)

View a perusal score & more about Where Go the Boats here: bit.ly/SATBboats

This performance of Where Go the Boats was recorded by L.A. Choral Lab on October 3, 2015, with Michael Alfera conducting.

Where Go the Boats? sets a seemingly simple Robert Louis Stevenson text about a child’s boats sailing down a river. As the river flows away with the boats at the poem’s conclusion, the speaker realizes, “Other little children / Shall bring my boats ashore.”

The poem’s undertones—loss, longing for return, and letting go—reach far beyond a child’s immediate experience. This particular musical setting aims to bring out both the surface simplicity of this poem and its potential darker, deeper implications. The child narrator copes with the loss of the boats in the same way an adult must cope with the loss of a lover: the lost objects are gone forever, but will nonetheless be loved in the future.

Where Go the Boats? was commissioned by the Harmonium Choral Society (directed by Anne Matlack) for a concert celebrating the 15th anniversary of Harmonium’s Composition Competition. Where Go the Boats was premiered June 2 & 3, 2012 at Grace Episcopal Church, Madison, NJ.

Where Go The Boats

Follow along with the score here: bit.ly/wingedlullaby

Butterfly Lullaby for SATB chorus, cello, and vibraphone (or piano) was premiered by the Syracuse University Concert Choir (as Winged Lullaby) on April 23, 2014, conducted by Elisa Dekaney. This piece was selected as the winner of the 2013 Gregg Smith Choral Composition Contest. 

Text: 
My wild indigo dusky wing
my mottled, broad-wing skipper, 
a sleepy, dreamy dusty wing, 
flying through my night.

My northern, southern, cloudy wing, 
my spring azure, my crescent pearl, 
a silver-spotted, sweet question mark, 
sleeping in my sky.

A tiger swallowtail, harvester, 
moving through my hours, 
an eyed brown in the redwing dark, 
wrapped softly in my words. 

—Annie Finch
First published in Calendars, Tupelo Press, 2003.

Butterfly Lullaby

Closer to Home exists in several arrangements: this new version for wind ensemble, and three original arrangements for a cappella chorus (SATB, SSAA, and TTBB). 

This new arrangement for wind ensemble was commissioned to celebrate the memory of Fran Boyden by featured performers Mona Shores High School  and Jason Boyden, Director of Bands.

In Fall 2017, my parents sold my childhood home within a day of putting it up for sale. I barely had time to come visit one last time before they moved. Although I hadn't lived there in twelve years, this was a place that I still thought of as home, in the way that you can leave the place where your life exists—in my case, Los Angeles—to go "home" to New Jersey, and then, on the flight back to California, say once again that you're returning home.
​
The person who bought that house planned to tear it down and build another, bigger one in its place. (Now, several years after composing the choral version of this piece, I can confirm: the new house that stands at that address bears not a trace of similarity to my childhood home.) Knowing that I'd never see the house again made it even harder to leave, but I did go back one last time that summer. That experience was the inspiration for Closer to Home.

Read more about the choral version of this piece, including the original text, at daletrumbore.com/closer-to-home.

Closer To Home | Wind Ensemble | Dale Trumbore

Purchase this piece for performance: bit.ly/latenovember

Light of Late November sets Barbara Crooker’s poem Praise Song, which describes in vivid detail the simple beauty of an autumn evening. This piece was premiered by The Singers - Minnesota Choral Artists on May 31, 2014 in St. Paul, MN.

Text:
Praise the light of late November, 
the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.
Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;
though they are clothed in night, they do not 
despair.  Praise what little there’s left:  
the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls, 
shells, the architecture of trees.  Praise the meadow
of dried weeds:  yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,
the remains of summer.  Praise the blue sky
that hasn’t cracked yet.  Praise the sun slipping down
behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves
that covers the grass:  Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,
Sugar Maple.  Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy
fallen world; it’s all we have, and it’s never enough.

—Barbara Crooker

Light Of Late November

Follow along with the score here: bit.ly/blessingscore

Blessing, a prayer for SATB chorus, combines two texts: one by the nineteenth-century Swiss philosopher Henri Frederic Amiel, and the Doxology:

"Life is short, and we do not have much time 
to gladden the hearts of those who make this earthly pilgrimage with us. 
So be swift to love, and make haste to do kindness. 

And the blessing of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit 
be upon you this day, and always. Amen."

The Flower Mound High School Jaguar Chorale (Mark Rohwer, director) gave the public premiere of this work on May 30, 2015. Blessing is dedicated to the Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton.

Blessing

Follow along with the score here: bit.ly/singtothelord

Sing to the Lord, a setting of Psalm 96, was premiered by the Harmonium Choral Society under the direction of Anne Matlack in Madison, NJ after winning Harmonium's Choral Composition Contest.

This recording features Canticum Novum LA, directed by Zanaida Robles.

Sing To The Lord

10,000 Hours for piano & orchestra was premiered on January 27, 2011 by soloist Nic Gerpe and the USC Thornton Symphony, conducted by Donald Crockett. This work was awarded the 2011 USC Sadye J. Moss Endowed Musical Composition Prize.

The title of 10,000 Hours comes from the theory that it takes roughly this many hours of practice to successfully master any skill. In this piece, the skill at hand is piano performance; each of the work’s five movements sets the piano soloist at a different point in practicing—referencing beginner piano music, etudes, and chamber music along the way—with the orchestra serving both as commenter and participant.

10,000 Hours

Follow along with the score here: bit.ly/onebluesky

One Blue Sky for SSAA a cappella chorus, composed by Dale Trumbore, was premiered by the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota Women's Choir (Lindsy O'Shea, director). This recording features Lumina, another Minnesota-based ensemble. 

ONE BLUE SKY (Excerpt from "After September 11")

One blue sky, fragile as a robin’s egg, 
covers us all. When we sleep, grass 
is our last blanket. Maybe the stars 
spell different stories to you, to me, 
but in the darkness of the night, 
they are light enough to see by.

—Barbara Crooker

One Blue Sky

Kristina Marie Darling's poem Footnotes to a History of the Jewelry Box tells a story through ten brief footnotes, suggesting a mysterious, fictional account of a jewelry box given as a gift. This musical setting of Darling's poem by composer Dale Trumbore animates the wordless narrative that Darling has left up to a reader's imagination. In the piece, the mezzo-soprano serves as a narrator of the footnotes themselves, helping to bring Darling's beguiling and elusive poem to life.

Footnotes to a History of the Jewelry Box was commissioned and  premiered by Inscape Chamber Orchestra (Richard Scerbo, conductor; Monica Soto-Gil, mezzo-soprano) on March 15, 2015 at Church of the Redeemer in Bethesda, MD. This piece was composed by Trumbore while in residence at Copland House, Cortlandt Manor, New York, as a recipient of the Copland House Residency Award.

Footnotes To A History Of The Jewelry Box

Follow along with the score here: bit.ly/thechristmasrose

The Christmas Rose for SATB chorus & piano was premiered by The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay on December 12, 2014 after winning their Christmas Carol Composition Competition.

This track was recorded on March 24, 2015 at the University of South Florida School of Music Choral Rehearsal Hall, Tampa, FL by The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, directed by Dr. James K. Bass and conducted here by Raymond Ocampo. The soloists featured are Christopher M. Hathaway, tenor and Lauren Krockta, soprano, with pianist Robert Winslow.

Text for The Christmas Rose comes from Dollie Radford's poem December:

"No gardener need go far to find
     The Christmas rose,
The fairest of the flowers that mark
     The sweet Year’s close:
Nor be in quest of places where
     The hollies grow,
Nor seek for sacred trees that hold
     The mistletoe.
All kindly tended gardens love
     December days,
And spread their latest riches out
     In winter’s praise.
But every gardener’s work this month
     Must surely be
To choose a very beautiful
     Big Christmas tree,
And see it through the open door
     In triumph ride,
To reign a glorious reign within
     At Christmas‐tide."

Image: "The Christmas Rose," © 2014 John Brennan, commissioned for special-edition scores of The Christmas Rose by The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay member Elena M. Richter.

The Christmas Rose

Follow along with the score here: bit.ly/notquitespring

ALMOST, BUT NOT QUITE SPRING sets a text by Barbara Crooker and was premiered by Choral Arts Initiative (Brandon Elliott, director) on February 22, 2015 in Newport Beach, CA. 

This piece was composed in residence at Copland House, Cortlandt Manor, New York, as a recipient of the Copland House Residency Award. 

Text:
ALMOST, BUT NOT QUITE SPRING

There is no color anywhere,
in the fields, in the woods,
only the monotony
of buff and brown,
fawn and dun,
smoke, slate, steel,
and now, coming into March,
the coldest nights of the year.
But each day, we climb
a few more inches
up the ladder of light,
and grackles and redwings
return, bringing postcards
of tropical sun.
The eye of the pond widens,
and geese scribble messages
across the grey sky:
"Hold on. Hold on.
It's coming."

—Barbara Crooker

Almost, But Not Quite Spring

This is the final movement, History's Stories, of the 3-song choral composition of the same name. The first piece (Echo's History's for TTBB chorus) and the second piece (Echo's Stories for SSAA) combine to make up this third SSAATTBB work, which layers the two previous pieces together. The three pieces can be performed together as a cycle, or any of the movements can be programmed as a stand-alone piece.

The text for History's Stories, by contemporary poet Diane Thiel, describes the myth of Narcissus and Echo and can be read three ways:

HISTORY'S STORIES
For her song and flight, Echo is torn apart, art
flung limb by singing limb. Each valley swallows, allows
her voice. In another tale, a flame enchants chance
encounters – Narcissus, who never returns, turns –
her love to stone. Rocks, caves, dens, the hollow hollow
of bones become her home – the old echoes, O's
that round our inner lives like the concentric trick
rings inside trees, reverberate for years, our ears –
Our voices rise and leave, traveling, raveling, veiling
currents across the sea, longing to reach each
Atlantis, locate shapes that sounds recall – call
back the world, as it was first encountered, heard.
—Diane Thiel

Reading just the last word of every line forms a poem ("art allows chance turns..."), and the poem can also be read with the last word of every line—which "echoes" part of the previous word—omitted. These three interpretations inspired the three different movements of History's Stories.

History's Stories was commissioned by Flower Mound High School, Mark Rohwer, director. The cycle was premiered by the FMHS Jaguar Chorale with the FMHS Men's Chamber Choir on May 30, 2015 at Lamb of God Lutheran Church in Flower Mound, TX.

History's Stories

This is the second movement, Echo's Stories, of the 3-song choral work History's Stories.

The first movement (Echo's History's for TTBB chorus) and the second movement (Echo's Stories for SSAA) combine to make up the third SSAATTBB movement (History's Stories), which layers the two previous movements together without changing any notes. 

The text for History's Stories, by contemporary poet Diane Thiel, describes the myth of Narcissus and Echo and can be read three ways:

HISTORY'S STORIES
For her song and flight, Echo is torn apart, art
flung limb by singing limb. Each valley swallows, allows
her voice. In another tale, a flame enchants chance
encounters – Narcissus, who never returns, turns –
her love to stone. Rocks, caves, dens, the hollow hollow
of bones become her home – the old echoes, O's
that round our inner lives like the concentric trick
rings inside trees, reverberate for years, our ears –
Our voices rise and leave, traveling, raveling, veiling
currents across the sea, longing to reach each
Atlantis, locate shapes that sounds recall – call
back the world, as it was first encountered, heard.
—Diane Thiel

Reading just the last word of every line forms a poem ("art allows chance turns..."), and the poem can also be read with the last word of every line—which "echoes" part of the previous word—omitted. These three interpretations inspired the three different movements of History's Stories. The three movements can be performed together as a cycle, or any of the movements can be programmed as a stand-alone piece.

History's Stories was commissioned by Flower Mound High School, Mark Rohwer, director. The cycle was premiered by the FMHS Jaguar Chorale with the FMHS Men's Chamber Choir on May 30, 2015 at Lamb of God Lutheran Church in Flower Mound, TX.

Echo's Stories

This is the first movement, Echo's Histories, of the 3-song choral work History's Stories.

The first movement (Echo's History's for TTBB chorus) and the second movement (Echo's Stories for SSAA) combine to make up the third SSAATTBB movement (History's Stories), which layers the two previous movements together without changing any notes. 

The text for History's Stories, by contemporary poet Diane Thiel, describes the myth of Narcissus and Echo and can be read three ways:

HISTORY'S STORIES
For her song and flight, Echo is torn apart, art
flung limb by singing limb. Each valley swallows, allows
her voice. In another tale, a flame enchants chance
encounters – Narcissus, who never returns, turns –
her love to stone. Rocks, caves, dens, the hollow hollow
of bones become her home – the old echoes, O's
that round our inner lives like the concentric trick
rings inside trees, reverberate for years, our ears –
Our voices rise and leave, traveling, raveling, veiling
currents across the sea, longing to reach each
Atlantis, locate shapes that sounds recall – call
back the world, as it was first encountered, heard.
—Diane Thiel

Reading just the last word of every line forms a poem ("art allows chance turns..."), and the poem can also be read with the last word of every line—which "echoes" part of the previous word—omitted. These three interpretations inspired the three different movements of History's Stories. The three movements can be performed together as a cycle, or any of the movements can be programmed as a stand-alone piece.

History's Stories was commissioned by Flower Mound High School, Mark Rohwer, director. The cycle was premiered by the FMHS Jaguar Chorale with the FMHS Men's Chamber Choir on May 30, 2015 at Lamb of God Lutheran Church in Flower Mound, TX.

Echo's Histories

Follow along with the score here: http://bit.ly/loveisasickness

Love is a Sickness takes nonsense words already in Samuel Daniel's text and adds scat syllables, creating a jazzy, swinging accompaniment to the soprano melody. This piece was a winner of the Chanticleer Student Composer Competition. 

This recording features the University of Maryland Chamber Singers, directed by Edward Maclary, at their 10th Anniversary Reunion Concert, May 21, 2011.

Love Is A Sickness

Amelia Tobiason, Soprano 1
Monika Beal, Soprano 2
Elizabeth Anderson, Alto 1 & Solo
Victoria Fox, Alto 2

Dale Trumbore, Composer & Co-Producer
Lucas Hausrath, Co-Producer & Editor

EBB TIDE

When the long day goes by
And I do not see your face,
The old wild, restless sorrow
Steals from its hiding place.

My day is barren and broken,
Bereft of light and song,
A sea beach bleak and windy
That moans the whole day long.

To the empty beach at ebb tide,
Bare with its rocks and scars,
Come back like the sea with singing,
And light of a million stars. 

—Sara Teasdale

Ebb Tide | SSAA

I think of Lodestar as a sort of fable for adults. Diane Thiel's text for the piece, from her poem Nursery Shellgame, describes life in the language of fairy tales and children's stories: "a trail of crumbs," "a handful of blue marbles," "how you wonder what you are."

There's darkness here, too: "years spent / following the tracks of other things / that would chew off limbs / to free themselves, knowing / they would never grow back." 

The last line of Thiel's poem, though, was what persuaded me that I absolutely had to set this poem to music: "Make sure you take a ship with you. Make sure you do. Even a swimmer as strong as you / needs a ship sometimes—even you."

I love the lyricism of the writing here, but more than that, this line offers such a quiet reassurance. Life is no fairy tale, and there is no correct path to follow; maybe we're not even as strong as we think we may be. Knowing this, though, we can still look out for ourselves; whatever our "ship" is, when we remember to rely on it, it will be there for us.

This performance of Lodestar features Choral Arts Initiative (Brandon Elliott, director) and soloist Chelsea Lyons and was recorded on July 18, 2015.

Lodestar

For more information about All We Need, visit daletrumbore.com/allweneed. 

Annie Finch's poem “Earth Day” is a celebration of all that the planet offers us, as well as a plea to respect what we find here. The recurring refrain of the piece is simple, but profound: “all we need” is to find love in what we already have, both in the “faces of the people we love” and on the earth itself. 

This recording features The Esoterics, directed by Eric Banks. All We Need was commissioned from by the Ithaca College Choir, Janet Galván, conductor. This piece was begun at Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts (Saratoga, WY).

EARTH DAY

All we want is to find the love
in the faces of the people we love.
All we need is to find the dark
in the nighttime sky, to lie down to sleep
in the darkness, where stars and moon keep vigil,
in the silence of a sleeping earth.
All we require is to wake to sunlight
in the morning, to simple sky,
to breathe aloud as the sky is breathing,
to drink the water of the earth.
​All we need is to touch the planet
and find it clean where we were born,
where our ancestors breathed and planted,
where we live with the plants and birds.
All we need is to live with the memory
of a future we want to imagine.
​All we want is to find the love
​in the face of the planet we love.

—Annie Finch
From Spells: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2013)

All We Need

IN THE MIDDLE

of a life that's as complicated as everyone else's, 
struggling for balance, juggling time.
The mantle clock that was my grandfather's
has stopped at 9:20; we haven't had time
to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still,
the chimes don't ring. One day I look out the window,
green summer, the next, the leaves have already fallen, 
and a grey sky lowers the horizon. Our children almost grown,
our parents gone, it happened so fast. Each day, we must learn 
again how to love, between morning's quick coffee
and evening's slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises,
 mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies
twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between; 
his tail, a metronome, 3/4 time. We'll never get there,
Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging
us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,
sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh 
of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up
in love, running out of time.

—Barbara Crooker

Barbara Crooker's poem In the Middle describes the struggle to connect in the rush of ordinary life. In this setting, the piano serves as an unreliable time-keeper, ebbing and flowing as our perception of time does. Sometimes, it pushes us on, frantic; sometimes, the pace relaxes in a moment of peace. The word “time” itself occurs over and over within the piece, serving as a sort of refrain, a reminder to slow down.

It is so easy to forget, in the context of everyday life, that time will ultimately catch up with all of us. There's no antidote, but in the meantime, we should “take off our watches” more often, finding ourselves “tangled up in love” with another or just with this life, and granting time permission, if not to stop, then to slow.

"In The Middle" by Barbara Crooker from Radiance. © Word Press, 2005. Used with permission.

In the Middle

Footnotes to a History of the Moon







_____________________________________
1.  The practice of mapping and naming lunar mountain ranges. 
2.  Using a five-inch reflector, she produced a daguerreotype of the moon, thus introducing photography to the celestial world.
3.  “It was then I realized that documentation was an unforgiving task. The mercury contained in the image left tiny fissures on my delicate hands.” 
4.  Poison.
	†1.  1. A substance causing injury or death. 
	‡2.  2. In chemistry, the task of inhibiting a reaction between elements.
5.  A little-known French film, in which the heroine names her children after features of the moon’s topography. Viewers were said to have expressed dismay at the prevalence of suicide in the work’s numerous subplots.
6.  Here she alludes to a recurring dream, in which she sees her image reflected in one of the smaller lunar basins. 
7.  Aitken. Meaning the south pole. Noted for its untroubled surface and frigid nights. 
8.  An unpublished portion of their correspondence. Here she states that she did not expect the chemicals to injure, much less debilitate and poison her. 
9.  The experiment tests the moon’s elaborate magnetic field. Its insatiable consumption of nitrogen and ice. 

-~-

Kristina Darling's poem "Footnotes to a History of the Moon" tells a story through nine brief footnotes. The narrative exists in what is left unsaid. 

This recording features the dream songs project: Alyssa Anderson, mezzo-soprano and Joseph Spoelstra, guitar.

Footnotes to a History of the Moon

Commissioned and premiered by the Hopkins High School Concert Choir (Philip Brown, director), Threads of Joy sets a text by Laura Foley.

Not just an exultation of happiness, Threads of Joy recognizes how we emerge from darkness and pain back into light, and the music captures this duality in ever-shifting, prismatic harmonies.

Threads Of Joy

Preview the score at www.daletrumbore.com/newlyfreed.

As Laura Foley's poem “Like Something Newly Freed” progresses, we shift from observing blackbirds at sunset to narrating from their perspective as we imagine ourselves among them. This setting of Foley's text attempts to capture that desire for freedom and flight in our own lives.
​
Like Something Newly Freed was commissioned by California ACDA for the 2017 California All-State Mixed Honor Choir (Dr. Amanda Quist, Conductor). Preview the score or purchase it for performance through MusicSpoke: bit.ly/newlyfreed.
 
TEXT
 
When you watch blackbirds flocking
in silhouette
against bare trees, against
a salmon sky, you wonder
at the sight, at the lift
you feel inside, the wings
and all that space.
As night begins,
you raise black wings
like leaves, like the lightness of a song.
As night hurries in,
you streak across the darkening sky
like something newly freed
and gaining, gaining on the sun.
​
—Laura Foley

ACDA All-State Honor Choir Concert 2

Like Something Newly Freed

For more information about this piece or to preview the score, visit daletrumbore.com/perhaps.

Perhaps sets an excerpt from the Artistic Director's Note of Choral Arts Initiative's April 2016 program. CAI's conductor, Brandon Elliott, didn't originally intend for his program note to be set to music, but it beautifully captures what musicians express through our compositions and performances. "Perhaps we may live an answer or illuminate a story," he writes; "Perhaps we may not." The last sentence quotes a line from Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem “To Kathleen."
 
This recording features Choral Arts Initiative, and Perhaps is dedicated to Brandon and CAI in celebration of their 5th Season. 

PERHAPS

In our lifetime, we will undoubtedly have so many questions left unanswered.
So many stories will be left untold.
Perhaps we may live an answer or illuminate a story.
Perhaps we may not.
So we turn to the security of constancy as dependable as the sea,
nature full of beauty and peace,
music that can teach and inspire.
Perhaps all we can do is seek comfort
in such things as flowers, and song, and you.
 
—Brandon Elliott

Perhaps

Breathe in Hope is available in voicings for SSAA, SATB, or TTBB chorus. Learn more about this piece or purchase it for performance: daletrumbore.com/breatheinhope

Maya Jackson's text for Breathe in Hope began as two Facebook posts responding to the violent deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. When confronted with tragedy, we may instinctively search for hope and healing. In the face of violent injustice, though, maybe the hope we seek can only be found when we recognize our own accountability and ask what actions we can take to create lasting change.
​
Breathe in Hope was commissioned by the Los Angeles Children's Chorus, Anne Tomlinson, Artistic Director, and this recording features LACC's premiere performance.

Breathe In Hope (SSAA & Piano)

Breathe in Hope | SATB Chorus & Piano | 6.5'

This piece is available for SATB, SSAA, or TTBB Chorus with Piano. Preview or purchase the score here: musicspoke.com/downloads/breathe-in-hope/

PROGRAM NOTE
"Maya Jackson's text for Breathe in Hope began as two Facebook posts responding to the violent deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. Reading Maya's words, I was drawn to her call for action. When confronted with tragedy, we may instinctively search for hope and healing. In the face of violent injustice, though, maybe the hope we seek can only be found when we recognize our own accountability and ask what actions we can take to create lasting change."

Breathe in Hope was commissioned by the Los Angeles Children's Chorus (Anne Tomlinson, Artistic Director). This recording features the chorus of the 2018 Cal State LA Summer Choral Festival, conducted by Bill Belan and accompanied by Dale Trumbore.

Breathe in Hope (SATB)

The Gleam sets a poem by contemporary poet Robin Myers of the same name. Myers's poem encapsulates what it means to be alive now, from the vulgarity of what we may encounter every day—
 
"We shove our men into a ring
and they shove each other until they bleed and swell.
We boil lobsters alive [...]
We strike pedestrians, who die instantly.
We die instantly."
 
—to the beauty that also threads our daily lives:

"...Yet it’s also true
that we pull softened butter across a slice of bread
with a softened knife.
We entrust our bones to bus drivers,
the napes of our necks to hair-cutters,
the lobes of our ears to the cloudy mouths
of lovers who may love us or not love us
but touch us as if they could..."

—and finally to a reconciliation of the two.

This piece was commissioned by CHAI Collaborative Ensemble and premiered with soprano Gillian Hollis in Chicago, IL in May 2018. The Gleam is available for soprano & chamber ensemble or for soprano & piano.

Read the full text for The Gleam at bit.ly/thegleam.

The Gleam

Flare is constantly in motion, a chase through the forest that drives toward the last line: “big brother, I am catching up to you.” The phrase “I am running” returns at various points, serving as a refrain and urging the music forward, in one long, rhythmic race.
 
Flare sets a poem by Stacy Gnall from her book of poems Heart First Into the Forest. This recording features Webster University's Aurelia (Stuart Hill, conductor).
 
Flare was commissioned by the 32 choruses of the ACDA Women’s Choir R&S Commissioning Consortium, Iris S. Levine, National Chair.

Webster Univ Choirs Oct 5 2018

Flare | Dale Trumbore

To purchase this score for performance, please visit www.daletrumbore.com/returning.

Contemporary poet Laura Foley's text for Returning describes watching and waiting for the return of wild geese—or any beloved thing—each passing year. This setting of her poem features a simple audience refrain that recurs three times. The refrain, included here and in the score's program notes, may be re-printed in the program or easily taught through call-and-response before the piece is sung. 

This performance features Choral Arts Initiative (Brandon Elliott, Artistic Director).

Returning | SATB Chorus & Audience

"Sometimes peace is like this:
endless and gentle and soft
and no compulsion to go
anywhere. And even the fire
you walked through,
even the trail of ashes
is gone, not even a memory
in your heart,
and even the sun is still,
unmoving and quiet,
and you have stepped into
a place beyond time,
beyond sadness and form.
A wide, high plain

where in the endless, deep silence
you find out what it is,
what it is,
and your part in it.

—Laura Davies Foley

Sometimes Peace Comes is a movement from secular requiem How to Go On. This movement features The Esoterics (Eric Banks, Artistic Director) with soloist Erica Valkren. Preview the score or purchase it for performance at www.daletrumbore.com/sometimespeace.

Sometimes Peace Comes (from How to Go On)

Another Chance (2018) is a musical exploration of the creative (and composing) process: putting down an idea; obsessing over it; revising it; second-guessing and re-writing it.

Within this piece and—one hopes—in the act of creating, we ultimately find ourselves in a state of flow, where we're free to boldly explore new concepts without judging them too harshly. Another Chance narrates this passage from timid self-doubt to bold, self-assured declarations.

This piece was written for and is dedicated to the Neave Trio, who premiered the work in September 2018.

Another Chance

Ave generosa | SSA Chorus & Piano (or Harp) | 5'
Learn more about this piece: bit.ly/avegenerosa

PROGRAM NOTE:
This recording features the Drake Chorale of Drake University, conducted by Linda Vanderpool.

Because the 50th anniversary season of WomenSing honored not only the choir but also five notable women, including Hildegard of Bingen, I wanted to celebrate this theme with a text that was both universally inclusive and appropriate for WomenSing's December concert.

Erasure poetry, my inspiration for this particular adaptation of Hildegard's text describing the Virgin Mary, takes an original piece of text and omits or “erases” certain words to create a new poem. In this piece, I chose to set to music a secular erasure of Hildegard's "Ave generosa" text to embrace and celebrate Hildegard herself and all women, regardless of faith. While the sacred words have been omitted, the empty space they create is nonetheless reflected in the singers' lines, through both rests and neutral syllables.

Ave generosa is dedicated to WomenSing (Martín Benvenuto, Artistic Director) on the occasion of its 50th anniversary and commissioned through the Marcia Hodges New Music Fund.

In Praise of Women 03/03/2019

Ave Generosa | SSA Chorus & Piano

For more information about this piece, visit daletrumbore.com/yes.

If I Say Yes was commissioned by the University of Maryland Chamber Singers and Edward Maclary for the 2019 NCCO National Conference, College Park, Maryland. This piece sets a poem by Trumbore about marriage and engagement, weighing this momentous decision against years of shared experiences.

IF I SAY YES

If I say yes, 
it won't be to some unknown future, 
some fifty years, but a yes 
to what we already have:
half a house and the two of us,
small sparrows in an unfamiliar nest.

If I say yes, it will be to words well-worn
and to ones we can barely speak aloud:
to house, or child, or forever.

If I say yes, know that I may be rusty
at choosing you over me, or me over anything.
I can hardly remember which finger takes a ring.

But I have studied us for years;
I have watched the way your neck greets your shoulders,
I have learned the laugh that means
you've forgotten yourself,
and I will choose that laughter every time.

And you will say yes to uncertainty 
saved for meals much smaller than this one,
to the teakettle whistling for minutes,
to the fruit overripe and the tea over-steeped,
to endless and to endlessly-wanted touch.

And I will be sure that,
if I still don't know the answer,
when we stand together overlooking 
anything vast and borderless,
those moments are the happiest I've been
to hover over the railing of uncertainty
and reach out to you again
with an unsaid yes.

And if neither of us is certain,
if we live in a land without rain,
then there is a yes to something surer here
even than certainty,
to something surer still than water,
and we have known that, here,
as sure as it does rain twice a year.

And if we are asking each other 
for time—
time our only matchmaker, 
time the tea-kettle's whistle, 
time the fruit overripe
and time the tea over-steeped, 
time our only choice, and time
always out of our hands—

then let's learn to time our asking.
Let's learn to ask only when the answer 
could be yes—will be yes—
so there is some small chance of it staying yes
as long as we both shall live.

When I was small, unable to sleep,
and imagining, somewhere,
a love I hadn't met, imagining that love
awake, imagining that love imagining me too,
I am certain that person was you.

I wish I knew another word for all of this—
I do. I do.

—Dale Trumbore

If I Say Yes

This performance features The Esoterics (Eric Banks, conductor). For more information about Spiritus Mundi, visit daletrumbore.com/spiritusmundi

SPIRITUS MUNDI

Listen around to the long sentence the land is saying,
to the wind rumoring through the aggregate of grasses.

Hear the soft explosions of all that is tilled under,
a scumble of clods cleaved by the blade, the sheared leavings

of wheat, and memory, memory, a root system still
drilling down, searching out moisture, anything that’s useful,

anything dear. Do you recognize your own shy gestures
in the weft of the fields? Oh sisters and brothers,

let the gentle tether of our longing keep us here
among the undulant, amber barley and russet oats.

And if all flesh is grass, then let us live humbly, as grasses do.
In sympathy, we shall shiver and bend, pressing our knees

into the earth, turning our faces to the quavering sun. 

—Amy Fleury

Spiritus Mundi

This performance features members of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) recorded live at Joe's Pub (New York, NY): Yuki Numata, violin; Caroline Shaw, violin; Nadia Sirota, viola; and Clarice Jensen, cello.

How it will go for string quartet is a quirkily tonal 6-minute string quartet centered around the idea that, despite one’s best intentions, things never go quite the way they should. 

How it will go contrasts predictability and unpredictability; the formal structure of a rondo and a fluid approach to that same structure; teasing pizzicato accompaniments and soaring melodic lines. 

How it will go was written for the Kronos Quartet while the ensemble was in residency at the University of Maryland, College Park. The Kronos Quartet premiered the piece on November 16, 2009 at UMD. 

How It Will Go

Follow along with the score here: bit.ly/flarescore

"Flare" (2012) for SSAA a cappella chorus is constantly in motion, driving toward the last line: “big brother, I am catching up to you.” The phrase “I am running” returns at various points, serving as a refrain and urging the music forward, in one long, rhythmic race. This premiere recording is performed by the Flower Mound High School Women's Chorale of Flower Mound, TX, directed by Mark Rohwer. 

"Flare" was commissioned by the 2012 ACDA Women’s Choir R&S Commissioning Consortium, Iris S. Levine, National Chair, made up of 32 choruses. This piece sets a text by poet Stacy Gnall from her book of poems "Heart First Into the Forest" (© 2011). This poem is used by permission of the poet and The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Alice James Books, USA.

Flare

Hailed by the New York Times for her "soaring melodies and beguiling harmonies," Dale Trumbore has received commissions, performances and awards from organizations including ACDA, ACME, Inscape Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale, The Singers - Minnesota Choral Artists and VocalEssence. Learn more about her music at daletrumbore.com.

Dale Trumbore

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