PRAIRIE SPRING by Greg Bartholomew A setting for SAB choir of the Poem by Willa Cather. With optional piano accompaniment. Recording by Matthew Curtis (Choral Tracks). Willa Cather (1873-1947) was an American writer best known for her novels of fron...  morePRAIRIE SPRING by Greg Bartholomew A setting for SAB choir of the Poem by Willa Cather. With optional piano accompaniment. Recording by Matthew Curtis (Choral Tracks). Willa Cather (1873-1947) was an American writer best known for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains. Prairie Spring was first published in 1913 as the prologue to the novel O Pioneers! Sheet music is available from J. W. Pepper: https://www.jwpepper.com/11208222.item PRAIRIE SPRING Evening and the flat land, Rich and sombre and always silent; The miles of fresh-plowed soil, Heavy and black, full of strength and harshness; The growing wheat, the growing weeds, The toiling horses, the tired men; The long empty roads, Sullen fires of sunset, fading, The eternal, unresponsive sky. Against all this, Youth, Flaming like the wild roses, Singing like the larks over the plowed fields, Flashing like a star out of the twilight; Youth with its insupportable sweetness, Its fierce necessity, Its shar...    less

Maybe there is no people who doesn’t know anything about Venice. For some of us Venice is the city of love, for others a pinch of history or a sinking wonder world caused by global warming. But it is not so well-known fact that there are 115 small i...

Albion sing a new setting of the extraordinary Poem by WB Yeats, 'He wishes for the cloths of heaven'. The music is by Fraser Wilson. Georgia Ball did some great filming. More details and buy the sheet music at www.albionchoir.org.uk. Also see www.f...  moreAlbion sing a new setting of the extraordinary Poem by WB Yeats, 'He wishes for the cloths of heaven'. The music is by Fraser Wilson. Georgia Ball did some great filming. More details and buy the sheet music at www.albionchoir.org.uk. Also see www.facebook.com/albionchoir @albion_choir  

[this is a version of a post which first appeared on my blog From the Front of the Choir]   I love my job, I really do. I just need some space and a bunch of people and we will make beautiful music together.   Photo by Heather Jennings &...

"Demain, dès l'aube" is dedicated to my dear friend Lillian Holowka and her partner Donald Bergen, who died less than a year apart in 2013 and 2014. Victor Hugo's heart-wrenching 1847 Poem describes a walk he plans to take tomorrow morning ("Demain, dè...  more"Demain, dès l'aube" is dedicated to my dear friend Lillian Holowka and her partner Donald Bergen, who died less than a year apart in 2013 and 2014. Victor Hugo's heart-wrenching 1847 Poem describes a walk he plans to take tomorrow morning ("Demain, dès l'aube") through the countryside to his daughter Léopoldine's grave four years after her tragic death in a boating accident, which also took the life of her husband Charles who had tried to save her. Sincere thanks to Matthew Curtis (choraltracks.com) for recording "Demain, dès l'aube." To purchase the sheet music for this song, please contact: info@leadingnote.com. I would like to acknowledge the a cappella choir that I sing in, The Stairwell Carollers, and our director Pierre Massie, for their musical inspiration these past 26 years. I would also like to thank my friends in our "Ad hoc Chorale" for testing out this piece in one of our informal workshops and offering valuable comments. And with deepest appreciation to my brother Adam Rain and m...    less

"I wandered lonely as a cloud" is a setting by composer Elani Willemse, of the Poem of the same title by William Wordsworth, telling of the poet's melancholic experience of loneliness within his daily existance and how this melancholy is briefly relieved ...  more"I wandered lonely as a cloud" is a setting by composer Elani Willemse, of the Poem of the same title by William Wordsworth, telling of the poet's melancholic experience of loneliness within his daily existance and how this melancholy is briefly relieved upon encountering a vast and beautiful field of daffodils. The melody paints the landscape, written in a minor key, which is then resolved to the major when his sadness finds resolution in this beauty that he experienced. Synaesthesia is incorporated by using specific harmonies and rhythmic patterns to imitate what the composer might imagine the poet saw, and the emotions he felt. This ultimately transforming the piece into a choral musical painting.  less

The Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York has a “Poetry in Motion” series that puts posters of poetry in subway cars. I was on the 1 train on Manhattan’s West Side one day when I saw the Poem “Heaven,” by Patrick Phillips. I was immediately captured ...  moreThe Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York has a “Poetry in Motion” series that puts posters of poetry in subway cars. I was on the 1 train on Manhattan’s West Side one day when I saw the Poem “Heaven,” by Patrick Phillips. I was immediately captured by the simple beauty of Patrick’s Poem, and the mystery of the first line, “It will be the past.” I loved his vision and thought immediately that I wanted to compose music for this Poem. Mystery, joy, wonder. “Heaven” is the winner of choral composition competitions sponsored by both the Manhattan Choral Ensemble and Georgia College. Performed by the Georgia College Max Noah Singers, Dr. Jennifer Flory conducting.  less

Score video of FIRE AND ICE, Greg Bartholomew's setting for mixed choir (SATB) of the Poem by Robert Frost (1874-1963). Audio recording by Matt Curtis (Choral Tracks). Published in December 1920 in Harper's Magazine and again in 1923 in his Pulitzer ...  moreScore video of FIRE AND ICE, Greg Bartholomew's setting for mixed choir (SATB) of the Poem by Robert Frost (1874-1963). Audio recording by Matt Curtis (Choral Tracks). Published in December 1920 in Harper's Magazine and again in 1923 in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book New Hampshire, "Fire and Ice" is one of Robert Frost's most popular Poems. Some have asserted that the Poem is a compression of Dante's Inferno. In an anecdote he recounted in 1960, prominent astronomer Harlow Shapley claimed to have inspired Fire and Ice in an encounter with Frost a year before the Poem was published. Frost asked Shapley how the world will end, and Shapley responded that either the sun will explode and incinerate the Earth, or the Earth will somehow escape this fate only to end up slowly freezing in deep space. Sheet music for FIRE AND ICE is available from J.W. Pepper: https://www.jwpepper.com/11129789.item For more information visit www.gregbartholomew.com/fireindex.html #Choralmusic #choir #RobertFrost  less

I think I’ve started a new project that is going to keep me learning new musical skills for a long time….. I love working on choral arrangements, however the more I do and the more I think about them, the more I actually learn. I am extremel...