This one has a yearning and a distress about it, not an easy listen, strings are great and the vocalist top notch.

Well done again! Those vocals are superb.

This is a real journey - from despair towards some sort of resolution - I love the way you bring in the lighter woodwinds towards the end to represent this.

So impressive tenor. The composition nicely evokes early spring days.

You sincerely always makes me speechless in how deep and original is your musical signature, in both terms of orchestration and composition! Congratulatione Maestro!

We are very lucky that you are active on SoundCloud and that you share with us this music of great category. Thanks !

Springs Songs (for Tenor and Chamber Ensemble)
Duration: ca. 20'

MOVEMENTS:
I. English Sparrows (Washington Square) (Edna St. Vincent Millay)
II. April 5, 1974 (Richard Wilbur)
III. Done With (Ann Stanford)
IV. The Widow’s Lament in Springtime (William Carlos Williams)
V. Spring Rain (Sara Teasdale)

Performers: American Modern Ensemble; Alok Kumar, Tenor
For More Information: https://robertpaterson.com/spring-songs
Publisher: Bill Holab Music: http://www.billholabmusic.com/composers/robert-paterson/
Purchase Sheet Music: http://billholabmusic.com/store/index.php?keyword=spring%20songs%20-&main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1
Also available as a version for tenor and piano: https://robertpaterson.com/spring-songs


PROGRAM NOTE
Spring Songs for tenor and chamber ensemble or piano is my third song cycle celebrating the seasons. As with the first two, Winter Songs for bass-baritone and Summer Songs for soprano, this cycle contains settings of poems by various American poets.

Whereas both Winter Songs and Summer Songs end with scenes in New York City, Spring Songs begins with New York: a setting of English Sparrows (Washington Square) by Edna St. Vincent Millay, a poem about a scene that takes place in the morning in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood in New York City where Millay lived in the early 1900s. The second movement is a setting of April 5, 1974 by Richard Wilbur, a poem Wilbur wrote in honor of Robert Frost’s one-hundredth birthday, and I interpret as being about overcoming self-doubt through wisdom, and about understanding the change of seasons, but also a change of mind. The third movement, Done With by Ann Stanford, I interpret to be about death and rebirth. Stanford symbolizes this by a house being torn down and the ground paved over, the now suffocated plant life yearning to break through. The Widow’s Lament in Springtime, the fourth movement, is a setting of a poem by William Carlos Williams. I interpret this poem as a modernist, pastoral elegy that uses images of nature to lament the death of a loved one. The final movement, a setting of the poem Spring Rain by Sara Teasdale, is about a happy memory of a lover brought about by an evening thunderstorm.

Spring Songs was commissioned by Rick Teller for the American Modern Ensemble.

AME ARTISTS
Robert Paterson, Conductor
Alok Kumar, tenor
Grace Law, flute
Nuno Antunes, clarinet
Samuel Z. Solomon, percussion
Geoffrey Burleson, piano
Victoria Paterson, violin
Peter Sachon, cello

The Four Seasons

Spring Songs - III. Done With (Text by Ann Stanford)

American composer Robert Paterson is a true New Yorker—born and bred in Buffalo, he lived in Rochester and Ithaca for over ten years, in New York City for over twenty years, and now lives in Saratoga Springs, near the Adirondacks. Paterson’s colorful music embraces a wide variety of themes, everything from goddesses and online dating to mathematics and the environment. His music is filled with emotion and fierce rhythmic energy, marked by elegance, wit, and meticulous craftsmanship. Named Composer of The Year by the Classical Recording Foundation at Carnegie Hall, Paterson is the winner of the Alfred I. DuPont Award, and his opera Three Way won the Grammy® under Best Classical Producer of the Year. His music is often a Best of the Year pick on National Public Radio. His orchestral tone poem, Dark Mountains, regularly airs on NPR’s Performance Today. Three Way premiered with Nashville Opera, then BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), and across the United States. Minnesota Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, The Oratorio Society of New York, Buffalo Philharmonic, Albany Pro Musica, Albany Symphony, Musica Sacra, Austin Symphony, Vermont Symphony, and ensembles worldwide perform his works. Paterson gives masterclasses at the Curtis Institute of Music, New York University, the Aspen Music Festival, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and more. He is the Artistic Director and house composer for Mostly Modern Projects. Robert is a lifelong vegan and advocates for animals and the environment, celebrating the natural world with ground-breaking works such as his Triple Concerto, A New Eaarth, Listen, and I Go Among Trees.

Comments

Ramon Capsada Blanch

Istvan J. Balazs

Ladat

Adam Richard Tucker Composer

Nicholas Bennett

These Guitars Say Sorry