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559299 bk American Choral US 12/8/06 13:28 Page 8 James Morrow AMERICAN CLASSICS James Morrow is Director of Choral Activities at the University of Texas at Austin where he conducts the Chamber Singers and Choral Arts Society and directs the graduate program in choral conducting. Prior to his appointment at the University of Texas, he served as Director of Choral Activities at the University of Florida AMERICAN CHORAL MUSIC and at Hope College in Michigan. Choirs under his direction have received numerous invitations to perform for various music conferences, and in 2005 he conducted the University of Texas Persichetti • Ives • Corigliano • Foss • Copland Chamber Singers in performances for both the Texas Music Educators Association Convention in San Antonio and for the Susanne Mentzer, Mezzo-soprano national convention of the American Choral Directors Association in Los Angeles. Also in 2005, he led that group in a performance with the Kronos Quartet and in a modern-day première and The University of Texas Chamber Singers recording of Brazilian composer José Maurício Nunes Garcia’s Missa de Nossa Senhora da Conceição of 1810. Additionally, his James Morrow choirs have toured internationally, singing for audiences in England, Scotland, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Brazil. James Morrow performed as a choral singer with Robert Shaw and the Robert Shaw Festival Singers in France and in the United States, participating in several recordings for TELARC, as well as performing as baritone soloist under Robert Shaw’s direction. He is a featured soloist on a TELARC CD with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chamber Chorus released in 2006. A student of the late Gérard Souzay, he has also performed as a baritone soloist with orchestras in a variety of repertoire, including Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs, Arvo Pärt’s Passio, and the Passions of J. S. Bach. He was twice selected as an Artist/Fellow at the Bach Aria Festival and Institute in Stony Brook, New York. 8.559299 8 559299 bk American Choral US 12/8/06 13:28 Page 2 AMERICAN CHORAL MUSIC The University of Texas Chamber Singers Dr James Morrow, Conductor • Seung Won Cho, Rehearsal Accompanist Vincent Persichetti (1915-87): Flower Songs 19:25 The University of Texas Chamber Singers has been one of the leading North American collegiate choral ensembles for nearly half a century. Under the direction of James Morrow, this highly select ensemble of mixed voices was 1 Flowers of Stone 3:19 organized in 1957 by Dr. Morris J. Beachy. Since that time they have traveled extensively throughout the United 2 Spouting Violets 2:20 States and much of Europe, the Middle East, and South America. Recent performances include Terry Riley’s Sun Rings with the Kronos Quartet, Delius’s Appalachia with conductor Gunther Schuller, the North American première 3 Early Flowers 3:02 and first complete recording of Brazilian composer José Maurício Nunes Garcia’s Missa de Nossa Senhora da 4 Is There a Flower 2:29 Conceição, and concerts for the American Choral Directors Association National Convention in Los Angeles. Their 5 A Yellow Flower 2:08 most recent concert tour was to Brazil where they performed in historic venues in São Paolo and Rio de Janeiro. 6 The Rose is Dying 2:56 7 Lily Has a Rose 3:10 Soprano Alto Tenor Bass Chamber Orchestra Julie Agee Sarah Bannon Dwight Bigler Sterling Allen 8 Charles Ives (1874-1954): Psalm 90 11:06 Erin Bobruk Alison Barrow Manuel Castillo Peter Hamilton Darlene Cluff Carla Flores James Henderson D’Acquistoe Hamner John Wiles, Tenor • Darlene Cluff, Soprano • Seung Won Cho, Organ Meredith Groeschel Erin Greene Jeffrey Jones-Ragona Phillip D. Hill Bells: Thad Anderson, Graeme Francis, Stephen Martin, Jeff Otto Katie Menzel Crystalyn Jass John Wiles Matthew Neumann Mary Petrak de Ávila Megan Pachecano Christopher Price 9 John Corigliano (b. 1938): Fern Hill 15:33 Lisa Sunset Roane Jim Shepherd Sarah Wood Susanne Mentzer, Mezzo-Soprano Solo Quartet: Lisa Roane, Soprano • Megan Pachecano, Mezzo-soprano Chamber Orchestra John Wiles, Tenor • Phillip Hill, Baritone • Chamber Orchestra 0 Lukas Foss (b. 1922): Behold, I Build an House 10:05 1st Violin Viola Double Bass Clarinet Seung Won Cho, Organ Laurie Stevens, Ames Asbell, principal David Dawson, principal Richard MacDowell* concertmistress Lana Harris Jessica Gilliam-Valls ! Aaron Copland (1900-90): In the Beginning 16:02 Wallace Depue Will Taylor Horn Leigh Mahoney Flute Susanne Mentzer, Mezzo-soprano Tracy Seeger Cello Patrick Hughes* Marianne Gedigian* The University of Texas Chamber Singers • James Morrow 2nd Violin Sara Nelson, principal Harp Margaret Coltman Oboe Publishers: Tracks 1-7: Elkan-Vogel, Inc. (Theodore Presser Company) Bruce Colson, principal Betsy Sanders Elaine Barber* Michalis Koutsoupides Benjamin Westney* Rebecca Henderson* Track 8: Merion Music, Inc. (Theodore Presser Company) • Track 9: G. Schirmer, Inc. Tammy Linn * Corigliano only Track 10: Mercury Music Corporation (Theodore Presser Company) • Track 11: Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. Stephanie Teply † Ives only We regret that we are unable to reprint the sung texts. 8.559299 27 8.559299 559299 bk American Choral US 12/8/06 13:28 Page 6 Susanne Mentzer American Choral Music Susanne Mentzer has become one of today’s Familiar names and lesser-known works, past masters women’s voices special prominence throughout the foremost mezzo-sopranos. She is widely and living luminaries, biblical texts and modern poetry, cycle. The first song embraces both life and death, admired as a specialist in trouser rôles, most the American choral tradition encompasses it all. The evoking the flowering of youth as well as the silence of notably for her portrayals of Cherubino (Le composers brought together here can reasonably be the grave in chant-like tones, while the second is a nozze di Figaro) and The Composer (Ariadne considered part of a tradition extending from Ives as the reverie of metaphors. The next pair celebrates an auf Naxos) and also specialises in the music of progenitor of modern American music. Selections on indiscriminate sexual passion (the many girls and many Mozart, Strauss, and the bel canto repertoire. this recording span the entire twentieth century but kisses in “Early Flowers”) before pledging true love and She enjoys a significant concert and recital eschew vocal experimentation and avant-garde styles. fidelity. “Is There a Flower” is a tender duet between career, with a particular interest in chamber Instead, these works embrace musical idioms more lovers who murmur to each other accompanied by a music, and is known as an interpreter of the gracious to singers and audiences alike. The choir is steady heartbeat and jazzy harmonies. The heart- vocal works of Mahler and a proponent of here employed by each composer as a vehicle for wrenching dissonances in “A Yellow Flower” and “The women’s music. Susanne Mentzer has communal experiences and collective emotions. Ives, Rose is Dying” speak of betrayal and grief. (Yellow appeared at nearly every great opera house and Copland, and Foss turn to biblical texts to capture the roses are a traditional symbol of infidelity, and in fact with major orchestras, under the batons of awe and wonder of creation, Persichetti and Corigliano Cummings had separated from his wife at the time.) In Muti, Masur, Mackerras, Colin Davis, to contemporary poetry to speak of innocence and the aftermath of the affair, “Lily Has a Rose” is a Bonynge, Dutoit, Mehta, Sinopoli, Ozawa, experience, love and loss. Together they represent the dialogue between two women, one jealous of attention Marriner, Haitink, Chailly, Abbado, mainstream of American composition and some of the paid to the other. Song and cycle end with a profound Eschenbach, Boulez, Norrington, Sawallisch, best in the catalogue of contemporary choral music. yet fatalistic sentiment first voiced by the sopranos and others. She also has appeared in many alone, answered by dissonant suspensions, then asserted productions of the late director Jean-Pierre Vincent Persichetti: Flower Songs (Cantata No. quite stridently by the entire choir. Ponnelle, whom she considers one of her great 6), Op. 157 (1983) influences, and with the late Giorgio Strehler Charles Ives: Psalm 90 (1923–24) at La Scala. Her extensive discography Philadelphia-native Vincent Persichetti was a prolific includes two recitals she often performs in composer of some 120 works, including notable pieces During the 1890s Charles Ives turned to the Psalms as concert: The Eternal Feminine, a recital of for piano and wind band, as well as much music suited texts for a set of experimental pieces. Most he left music by women composers, which includes for instructional use. Like Foss, his style was eclectic, unrevised as they were first written (one, a setting of the première of Libby Larsen’s Love After but Persichetti did not tend to work within any one style Psalm 67 with the women in C major and the men in G 1950 with her long-time pianist, Craig at any given time; instead of falling easily into stylistic minor, was recorded as early as 1939 and is a staple of Rutenberg; and her personal favourite, periods, his music was always marked by compositional choral concerts even today). Psalm 90, however, he Wayfaring Stranger, a collection of variety. continued to work on during his life as a composer, international folk-songs arranged for voice Persichetti preferred texts by American writers, bringing it to its final form as late as 1923. and guitar, with Grammy Award winning with E.E. Cummings clearly a favorite. Flower Songs Written at the end of his compositional career and in Sharon Isbin. Susanne Mentzer has reveals the depth of the composer’s commitment to the a genre closely associated with his earliest experiences established herself as a pedagogue, frequently poet: Persichetti chose seven poems that span as a church organist, Psalm 90 is perhaps a summation giving master-classes in conjunction with singing engagements.

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