A gorgeous, if a bit strange, English ballad. Some familiar themes... young love, accidental pregnancy, parental overreach... it only gets really weird when he meets her father... >.>

Painting: Albert Herter, "Signing of Magna Carta" or "English Law", 1916
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:English_Law_by_Albert_Herter_-_Wisconsin_Supreme_Court_-_DSC03166.JPG

Willie o' Winsbury

"Me and me cousin, one Arthur McBride, as we went a walkin down by the seaside; now mark what did follow and what did betide, for it bein on Christmas mornin!"

The rather eventful and semi-humorous story of what happens when two Irishmen encounter British military recruiters on the seaside. The song speaks frankly about the realities of the military and warfare, and is also is quite open with its animosity toward the British in Ireland. An early protest song!

Painting: James Wilson Morrice, "Beach Scene, Tangier"
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_Wilson_Morrice_-_Beach_Scene,_Tangier_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Arthur McBride

Ophelia Songs (2014)
text from Hamlet, by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Written for the Western Washington University Concert Choir,
under the direction of Dr. Leslie Guelker-Cone, with Madeline Slettedahl, our fantastic choral accompanist, at the piano. McKenzie Clark, great choral conducting student and choir member, conducted this performance on my senior composition recital!

Solos (in order of appearance): Danielle Bayne & Nick Kim, Cammy Quaife, Eoghan Gormley

The texts for this piece are taken from Ophelia’s lines in Act IV of Hamlet.
--Spoiler Alert!--
This odd assortment of verses are ostensibly real folk-songs, that Shakespeare has given Ophelia to sing as she goes mad. Just prior to this, Hamlet, violently moody title character and lover of Ophelia, has both killed Ophelia’s father (perhaps in a fit of madness, himself) and departed Denmark for England. When Ophelia enters in Act IV, she has noticeably begun to lose touch with reality—instead of conversing with the King and Queen she sings snippets of folk-songs and spouts nonsensical utterances. Her grasp slips further as time goes on, especially as her brother enters and she does not recognize him. After a particularly touching scene where she hands out imaginary flowers to the characters present, she sings the last two stanzas below, and leaves. The next we hear about her—not even a scene later—is that she has drowned in the brook, after making herself “fantastick garlands...Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples”.

----------

How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.

He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.

They bore him barefac'd on the bier;
And on his grave rain many a tear,—
Fare you well, my dove!

You must sing, Down-a-down, call him a-down-a.

To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I, a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine!

And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
He never will come again.

His beard was white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll:
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan:
Heaven 'a mercy on his soul!

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27761/27761-h/27761-h.htm#sceneIV_1

Painting: "Ophelia", John Everett Millais
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:John_Everett_Millais_-_Ophelia_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Ophelia Songs

An Appalachian song, by way of many older variants in England. I found it in an old, thick book I checked out from the library (Possibly Alan Lomax's "Folk Songs of North America").
The title character pops up with quite a few different two-syllable names, though in many versions the name is never mentioned. In the notes for her version called "Henry", Fay Hield writes "this song is pretty unusual for being entirely developed through dialogue." I hadn't thought about that, but it is true.
All the sounds here are my voice.

Edward

A fragment I put together based on a sound I made in MetaSynth (a seriously awesome program). That sound forms the background of this, with some keyboard notes over the top of it. Half an hour's work. :)

Photo: "The view from the Gerlache Strait between Anvers Island and the Antarctic Peninsula", Zee Evans, National Science Foundation.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:View_from_the_Gerlache_Strait_between_Anvers_Island_and_the_Antarctic_Peninsula.JPG

Millions of Tiny Suns

Nathaniel Voth, baritone
Evan Ingalls, piano
Composers of Western concert, March 5th 2015.

----------

“WELL, Emily Sparks, your prayers were not wasted,
Your love was not all in vain.
I owe whatever I was in life
To your hope that would not give me up,
To your love that saw me still as good.
Dear Emily Sparks, let me tell you the story.
I pass the effect of my father and mother;
The milliner’s daughter made me trouble
And out I went in the world,
Where I passed through every peril known
Of wine and women and joy of life.
One night, in a room in the Rue de Rivoli,
I was drinking wine with a black-eyed cocotte,
And the tears swam into my eyes.
She thought they were amorous tears and smiled
For thought of her conquest over me.
But my soul was three thousand miles away,
In the days when you taught me in Spoon River.
And just because you no more could love me,
Nor pray for me, nor write me letters,
The eternal silence of you spoke instead.
And the black-eyed cocotte took the tears for hers,
As well as the deceiving kisses I gave her.
Somehow, from that hour, I had a new vision—
Dear Emily Sparks!”
http://www.bartleby.com/84/16.html

Painting: "Le Déjeuner des canotiers", Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Renoir14.jpg

From Spoon River Anthology - I. Reuben Pantier

Jeanie Marinella, soprano
Evan Ingalls, piano
Composers of Western concert, March 5th 2015.

----------

“WHERE is my boy, my boy—
In what far part of the world?
The boy I loved best of all in the school?—
I, the teacher, the old maid, the virgin heart,
Who made them all my children.
Did I know my boy aright,
Thinking of him as spirit aflame,
Active, ever aspiring?
Oh, boy, boy, for whom I prayed and prayed
In many a watchful hour at night,
Do you remember the letter I wrote you
Of the beautiful love of Christ?
And whether you ever took it or not,
My boy, wherever you are,
Work for your soul’s sake,
That all the clay of you, all of the dross of you,
May yield to the fire of you,
Till the fire is nothing but light!...
Nothing but light!”
http://www.bartleby.com/84/17.html

Painting: "June, Paradise Valley", Worthington Wittredge (1820-1910)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wittredge_Worthington_June_Paradise_Valley.jpg

From Spoon River Anthology - II. Emily Sparks

One of the most poetic depictions of madness I've heard. I learned this from Steeleye Span. That's me on guitar, voice, and Peadar McMahon's electric harmonium!

-----
"For to see mad Tom of Bedlam
Ten thousand miles I'd travel
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes
For to save her shoes from gravel

Chorus (after each verse)
    Still I sing bonnie boys, bonnie mad boys
    Bedlam boys are bonnie,
    For they all go bare and they live by the air
    And they want no drink nor money

I went down to Satan's kitchen
For to get me food one morning
And there I got souls piping hot
All on the spit a-turning

Me staff has murdered giants
And me bag a long knife carries
For to cut mince pies from children's thighs
With which to feed the fairies

This spirit's white as lightning
Would on me travels guide me
The moon would shake and the stars would quake
When ever they espied me

And when that I have murdered
The man in the moon to a powder
His staff I'll break and his dog I'll shake
And there'll howl no demon louder

For to see mad Tom of Bedlam
Ten thousand years I'd travel
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes
For to save her shoes from gravel"

Boys Of Bedlam

Accompanying myself on electric harmonium for this haunting song, originally a shape note hymn tune. From my performance at the Honey Moon on Feb. 15th.

Tune: Ananias Davisson (1780-1857)
Words: Charles Wesley (1707-1788)

Wesley is known for writing the words of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing!", among others. Davisson published Kentucky Harmony in 1815.

The music: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/walker/harmony/files/hymn/Idumea.html
More background: https://mainlynorfolk.info/watersons/songs/idumea.html

-----

"And am I born to die?
To lay this body down?
And must my trembling spirit fly
Into a world unknown -

A land of deepest shade,
Unpierced by human thought,
The dreary regions of the dead,
Where all things are forgot?

Soon as from earth I go,
What will become of me?
Eternal happiness or woe
Must then my portion be:

Waked by the trumpet's sound,
I from my grave shall rise,
And see the Judge with glory crowned,
And see the flaming skies."

Am I Born To Die?

Written for and performed by my 5th and 6th grade choir at the Whatcom Hills Waldorf School.
On a poem by Emily Dickinson:

Bee! I'm expecting you!
Was saying Yesterday
To Somebody you know
That you were due —

The Frogs got Home last Week —
Are settled, and at work —
Birds, mostly back —
The Clover warm and thick —

You'll get my Letter by
The seventeenth; Reply
Or better, be with me —
Yours, Fly.

hellopoetry.com/poem/2416/bee-im-expecting-you/

*****

Painting: "Old Bee Farm", Clara Southern
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Bee_Farm_-_Clara_Southern.JPG

Bee! I'm Expecting You!

I learned this from Jeff Warner when he did a concert here in October. The words are originally a Sacred Harp hymn...not sure where the melody comes from. Jeff plays it on banjo with the high drone string dropped a major second; I traded to guitar.

-----

CHORUS:
I'm a long time travellin here below,
A long time a-travellin away from my home
I'm a long time travellin here below,
Gon lay this body down.

When I can see my title clear
To mansions in the sky,
I'll bid farewell to every fear
And wipe each weepin eye.

These fleeting charms of Earth, farewell,
Your springs of joy are dry
My soul now seeks another home,
A brighter world on high.

Farewell kind friends, whose tender care
Has long engaged my love
Your fond embrace I now exchange
for better friends above.

Photo: St. John's Episcopal Church, Savannah, GA, 1862.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St._Johns_Church,_Episcopal_(NYPL_b11707430-G90F153_002F).tiff

Long Time Travellin

Musician, writer, educator, composer, tea enthusiast.

Coast Salish land.

evan ingalls

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