Program Notes from "Folk Music of the Americas"

Program Notes

 Good evening and welcome!  Those of you who are rejoining us, it’s great to see you again!  We’ve missed you, and we’re eager to show you what we’ve been up to this spring.  To those of you who are joining us for the first time tonight, we send a particular “thank you!” for coming and opening yourself up to a musical experience you might not have considered before!  We are a community chorus; not a one of the singers is a professional musician.  We do not audition for our membership—it’s come one, come all; can you sing?  Join us!  The chorale members define the term, “amateur,” in that they join their voices together and sing purely for the love of making music together. 

 This past January, we sang a program of contemporary “classical” compositions.   Tonight, for a folksy change of pace, we’ll be pleased to host you on a musical tour of the Western Hemisphere, stopping at various ports of call along the way, presenting music from South, Central and North Americas. 

 We’re delighted to have some musical guests this evening.   We’ll be joined at various points by the folk duo, Austen and Woods, who are, more specifically, Beverly Woods and Seth Austen, from Water Village, New Hampshire (a village in Ossipee).  Beverly brought a singing group of hers down as well, the Beech River Chorus.  In addition, we have the good luck of having a clogging friend, Concord’s own Dave Harvey, joining us for some foot stomping rhythm at a couple of points during the festivities.  Last but certainly not least, we have an oboist friend joining us for a second time: Nora Youngs is a senior in high school, all set to go off to college next fall to major in oboe.  She was a part of an orchestra (made up of many Concord Community Music School students and other friends) that accompanied our concert in January of ‘04.   Connie LaRosa, Suncook Valley Chorale’s accompanist extraordinaire, and I have both enjoyed working with these musicians in the course of our rehearsals, and we can’t wait to have you hear our results.
 

We’ll begin at home with two familiar folk songs.  Oh Dear! What can the matter be? and Polly-Wolly Doodle are both well known in the American Folk Song repertoire.  These two arrangements are from the late 1940’s, and are old choral “warhorses;” I sang one of them back in my high school days and the other shortly after college. 

From home, we travel south.  The Brazilian folk song, Eu e Você will have a very familiar feel to it: it has the chordal movement and flow of a 1950’s doo-wop song, and its lyrics aren’t far from that vein either.  Says the poet: “Ah dear, my beloved, I gave to you my heart.  Other love existed, but it was pure illusion.  I have a beautiful house prepared for us to live our lives together.  I am happy because I know that you are mine, ah!  Me and you!” 

We’ll steam up the coast now, bypassing the USA for a few minutes and settling on the Canadian Maritime provinces for a while.  I’se the B’y is a Newfoundland folk song that speaks with an energetic and youthful voice of love, while also providing a verbal map of some of the fishing ports along the east coast of the island province.  This arrangement is by a friend and colleague, Dr. Robert Swift of Plymouth State University.  We’ll hop the ferry to Nova Scotia next; we’ll take a left turn and head up to Cape Breton Island for three songs: Cape Breton Lullaby, Away From the Roll of the Sea, and Song for the Mira.

Austen and Woods will take over now for a few numbers, with Dave clogging along as well.  Enjoy their instrumental offerings to our trip as they take the role of tour guide for a few minutes.

We’ll close out the first part of our concert with a return home to our own country.  Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing is an American Folk Hymn, set by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s Assistant Music Director, Mack Wilberg.  Sealing our souls for heavenly courts, we’ll take an intermission of a few minutes to let you stretch your legs and read your programs.  Enjoy the evening air, but please do take a few minutes to notice all the businesses which advertise in our program.  It is their financial support that allows us to present musical journeys like tonight’s; please do us the favor of letting them know how much you value their appreciation of the arts!

We return with a quick hop to the Caribbean.  Jamaican Market Place sings of a woman selling her fish in a Kingston seaside market.   Back home we travel, with another Wilberg arrangement, this time of a Tennessee folk song called Old Joe Clark.  Seth joins us on this rollicking square dance tune.

If you’ve been on a cruise, you know that there are frequently excursions, mini tours, along the journey.  We’ll take one of these now, as we chronicle the evolution of a folk song.  The song Keep Your Lamps was a spiritual from the days of slavery.  It is an example of a “signal” song: it was a song that was sung to prepare those few who were going to make the attempt at freedom.  Lyrics such as “children, don’t get weary,” and “the time is drawing nigh” take on an almost frightening new significance with this understanding.  Beverly and Seth now pick up the story of this song, as they play for us a version of it as it appeared in early Blues literature from the late 1800’s or early 1900’s, an age when Blues was just beginning; listen to how the treatment of the tune gets jangly and “bluesy.”  Finally, Beverly will accompany us to give you the last version of this song on the program, which is a more modern rendition of the same song.  This one focuses on the image of the Lamp as a symbol of hope: “Have your lamps gone out?  What’cha gonna’ do in Egypt (the land of slavery) if your lamp’s gone out?!”  This version blends in lyrics other spirituals and another signal song, “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” directing the escaped slaves North by following the North Star.  “If you get there before I do, tell all my friends I’m coming too!”  The way that time and travel have changed these three versions of this song are evident in the three arrangements before you tonight—enjoy listening to the process of musical evolution!

Bayou Sara tells of a side-wheeled packet, a steamship, which carried cargo up and down the Mississippi.  In December of 1885, it burned on the river in Missouri, destroying all of the ship that was above the waterline.  Roustabouts (ex-slaves that were the primary labor force aboard these cargo vessels) sang this song about some of their friends who escaped the flames and some who didn’t.  What’s so interesting about this piece is the swing beat!  Swing is the triple-metered backbeat that was the root of jazz and rock and roll.  First sung in 1885, this piece would have been one of those seminal pieces of a new style in the making; not spiritual and not blues, but a different kind of black folk music.  This arrangement (along with Have Your Lamps and Sail Away) was written for chorus and hammered dulcimer by Malcolm Dalglish, a folk musician from the Mississippi region, who has been breathing new life and energy into old folk songs.  You can hear some of this wonderful music on his CD, Pleasure.

Sail Away is our closer.  It is an old fiddle tune from the Midwest; Dalglish calls for a clogger and a fiddler as we build our boat and sail away!  The energy and drive of this piece will have you humming that tune from here into August!

So, there you have it!  From home to abroad and back home again, we hope you’ve enjoyed your musical journey with Suncook Valley Cruise Lines; please come back!

 

If tonight’s singing has you thinking about joining us, please come to our next Open Sings, which will be Monday, September 12th and 19th at the Pleasantview Retirement Community auditorium.  Ask a chorale member how to get there and what’s involved and look for notices in the local papers towards the end of August.  We are all happy to share our talents with you and hope that you’ll share your talents with us!

Program

Starting at Home

Oh, dear! What can the matter be?.......................................................................................................... arranged by Gail Kubik

Polly-Wolly Doodle................................................................................................................................................... arr. Gail Kubik

 

Headed South

Eu e Você................................................................................................................. Brazilian Folk Song, arr. J. Edmund Hughes

Guantanamera...................................................................................................................................................... Traditional Cuban

The Beech River Chorus with Tom Guertin and Dave Dalrymple

 

The Canadian Maritimes

I’se the B’y.............................................................................................................................................................. arr, Robert Swift

Cape Breton Lullaby............................................................................................................... Kenneth Leslie, arr. Stuart Calvert

Away from the Roll of the Sea.......................................................................... Allister MacGillivray, with John C. O’Donnell

Song for the Mira.......................................................................................................... Allister MacGillivray, arr. Stuart Calvert

Oboe: Nora Youngs

 

Austen and Woods (with Dave Harvey)

                A set of Cape Breton tunes and a segue

 

Home for a spell

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing............................................................................................................. arr. Mack Wilberg

featuring: Janet Ball, piano and Robynn Orr, Cello

 

 

*** Intermission ***

 

A One-Day Stop in the Caribbean

Jamaican Market Place................................................................................................................................................ Larry Farrow

 

Home to Stay

Old Joe Clark........................................................................................................................................................ arr. Mack Wilberg

Keep Your Lamps!............................................................................................................................................. arr. André Thomas

Keep Your Lamps..................................................................................................................................... arr. Austen and Woods

Have Your Lamps Gone Out?...................................................................................................................... arr. Malcolm Dalglish

Bayou Sara..................................................................................................................................................... arr. Malcolm Dalglish

 

Austen and Woods

                A set of Southern-Appalachian tunes

 

The Grand Finale

Sail Away!...................................................................................................................................................... arr. Malcolm Dalglish