Springs Songs (for Tenor and Chamber Ensemble)
Performers: American Modern Ensemble, featuring Alok Kumar, tenor

Also available as a version for tenor and piano

But and Stream Album

Springs Songs (for Tenor and Chamber Ensemble)

Robert Patersons The Four Seasons consists of four song cycles, with a total of twenty-one songs, for four different voice types: soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, and bass-baritone. Each voice type represents a different season: Summer Songs (soprano), Autumn Songs (mezzo-soprano), Winter Songs (bass-baritone), and Spring Songs (tenor). The four critically-acclaimed singers on this album, soprano, Marnie Breckenridge, mezzo-soprano, Blythe Gaissert, tenor Alok Kumar, and bass-baritone David Neal have worked closely with Paterson, and gave the world premieres of these works with American Modern Ensemble, one of Americas most beloved new music ensembles. The songs on this album are all settings of poems by various poets (listed below in the track listings), and each cycle is for voice and chamber ensemble consisting of flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin and cello. This ensemble is commonly called a Pierrot ensemble, named after the ensemble that Arnold Schoenberg used for his work Pierrot Lunaire. To date, Paterson has composed more works for this type of ensemble than anyone in the world. The Four Seasons was produced by Grammy® winning producer and engineer Adam Abeshouse, and recorded at The DiMenna Center for Classical Musics Mary Flagler Cary Hall (Summer Songs and Autumn Songs), the American Academy of Arts and Letters (Winter Songs), and in the Ladd Concert Hall Skidmore Colleges Arthur Zankel Music Center (Spring Songs).

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The Four Seasons

Summer Songs (for Soprano and Chamber Ensemble)
Duration: ca. 24'

MOVEMENTS:
I. Summer Music (May Sarton)
II. The KIte (Anne Sexton)
III. Childhood (Sharan Strange)
IV. Moths (Jennifer O'Grady)
V. Summer Night, Riverside (Sara Teasdale)

Performers: American Modern Ensemble; Marnie Breckenridge, Soprano
For More Information: https://robertpaterson.com/summer-songs
Publisher: Bill Holab Music: http://www.billholabmusic.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=103_137&products_id=2333
Online Perusal Score: https://issuu.com/robertpaterson/docs/paterson_summer_songs__score-chambe
Also available as a version for soprano and piano: https://robertpaterson.com/summer-songs-piano-vocal-version

PROGRAM NOTE
There is a seemingly endless supply of poems about summer. After writing Winter Songs for bass-baritone and chamber ensemble or piano, I realized that I had inadvertently only set poems by male poets, so I decided to restrict myself to female poets for this cycle. I am well-aware that this could emphasize a potential cliché: woman can be viewed as more "summery" and men more "wintery,” but more than anything, this is merely a way to offer a course correction, so to speak, or even a yin and yang, as well as a way to create a balance between these two works.

Summer Songs begins with a setting of Summer Music by May Sarton, a light, happy, playfully musical poem filled with allusions to nature. The second movement is a setting of The Kite by Anne Sexton, a poem about honoring and enjoying the moment, and the simple things in life such as flying kites with children. Childhood, the third movement, is a setting of a poem by Sharan Strange about children capturing fireflies. The fourth movement, Moths, is a setting of a poem by Jennifer O’Grady about moths, but relating to late night conversation on a front porch. The cycle ends with a setting of Summer Night, Riverside, by Sara Teasdale, a passionate, warm, optimistic poem that muses on the timelessness of summer.

Summer Songs was commissioned by The ASCAP Foundation via the Charles Kingsford Fund, for Marnie Breckenridge and the American Modern Ensemble. Special thanks to Marnie Breckenridge for her assistance in selecting the poems for this cycle.

Commissioned by The ASCAP Foundation via the Charles Kingsford Fund, for Marnie Breckenridge and the American Modern Ensemble

ARTISTS
Robert Paterson, Conductor
Marnie Breckenridge, soprano
Sato Moughalian, flute
Pascal Archer, clarinet
Matthew Ward, percussion
Geoffrey Burleson, piano
Esther Noh, violin
Dave Eggar, cello

Summer Songs - V. Summer Night: Riverside (Text: Sara Teasdale)

Summer Songs - IV. Moths (Text: Jennifer O'Grady)

Summer Songs - III. Childhood (Text: Sharan Strange)

Summer Songs - II. The Kite (Text: Anne Sexton)

Summer Songs - I. Summer Music (Text: May Sarton)

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

Spring Songs - V. Spring Rain (Text by Sara Teasdale)

Spring Songs - IV. The Widow’s Lament in Springtime (Text by William Carlos Williams)

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

Spring Songs - II. April 5, 1974 (Text by Richard Wilbur)

Spring Songs - I. English Sparrows (Washington Square) (Text by Edna St. Vincent Millay)

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.

Spring Songs - IV. The Widow’s Lament in Springtime (Text by William Carlos Williams)

Robert Paterson Composer