Choral Music Brochure

The Choral Music of Ronald Perera “Ronald Perera is among the finest living combiners of words and music.” —John Story, Fanfare ECS Publishing :: Music Associates of New York :: Pear Tree Press Music Publishers About the Composer RONALD PERERA’S (b. Boston, 1941) compositions include operas, song cycles, chamber, choral and orchestral works, and several works for instruments or voices with electronic sounds. He is perhaps best known for his settings of texts by authors as diverse as Dickinson, Joyce, Grass, Sappho, Cummings, Shakespeare, Francis of Assisi, Melville, Ferlinghetti, and Updike. Several major pieces are represented on compact disc. Reviewing CRI CD 796 for Fanfare magazine, critic John Story writes, “Three Poems of Günter Grass is, quite simply, one of the most haunting works of the last 25 years.” Reviewing The Outermost House on Albany Troy 314 he writes, “When he is on form, Ronald Perera is among the finest living combiners of words and music. The music is simply lovely.” Perera studied composition with Leon Kirchner at Harvard and electronic music with Gottfried Michael Koenig at the University of Utrecht. He also worked independently with Randall Thompson in choral music and with Mario Davidovsky in electronic music. He has received awards or fellowships from Harvard University, the Paderewski Fund, the Goethe Institute, the MacDowell Colony, the Artists Foundation of Massachusetts, the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the Bogliasco Foundation, Meet the Composer, the National Endowment for the Arts and ASCAP. In 1975 he co-edited The Development and Practice of Electronic Music for Prentice-Hall. His music is published by E.C. Schirmer (ECS Publishing), Boosey and Hawkes, Music Associates of New York, and Pear Tree Press Music Publishers, and is recorded principally on the CRI, Opus One, Albany, and Navona labels. His String Quartet, commissioned by the South Mountain Association, was premiered by the Muir Quartet in 2004. His children’s opera, The Araboolies of Liberty Street, commissioned by the Manhattan School of Music, was premiered in New York in 2002. Michigan Opera Theater gave many in-school performances of the opera during the 2005-06 and 2013-14 seasons. His cantata, The Golden Door, based on Ellis Island archives, was premiered in New York by the New Amsterdam Singers in 1999. His choral work Why I Wake Early, on poems of Mary Oliver, was co-commissioned and premiered by the Chatham Chorale on Cape Cod in 2007 and by the New Amsterdam Singers in New York in 2008. It was recorded by Boston’s Coro Allegro in 2012. His two-act opera, S., which is based on the novel by John Updike, received a fully staged workshop performance in Northampton, MA in 1995. In 1989 his two-act opera, The Yellow Wallpaper, with libretto adapted from the Charlotte Perkins Gilman novella by Constance Congdon, premiered in Northampton. It received its New York premiere at the Manhattan School of Music in 1992 and was produced (Act 1) at the University of New Hampshire in 2003. The complete opera was produced by the Chicago College of Performing Arts in 2006. His vocal chamber work Crossing the Meridian, commissioned by Boston Musica Viva, has been performed by Gerard Schwarz at Merkin Hall, by the Lontano Ensemble in London, and by the Eastman Musica Nova in Rochester and the Twentieth Century Consort in Washington. Some other significant performances include Bright Angels at the Almeida Festival, London (1986), Chamber Concerto at the 1984 Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, Tolling at Alice Tully Hall (1980) and at the 12th Concours International de Musique Electroacous- tique at Bourges (1984), Three Poems of Günter Grass at the 1976 Holland Festival, in Berlin on the Boston Musica Viva’s European tour and at the Aspen Music Festival, and Reverbera- tions at the 1974 Avignon Festival. His Mass for chorus and orchestra, which premiered in 1973 at the Washington National Cathedral, received its New York premiere in a new version with two-piano accompaniment in 1994 with the New York Virtuoso Singers. The Outermost House was premiered on Cape Cod in 1991 by the Chatham Chorale. It was first performed in New York in 1994 by the New Amsterdam Singers. Visions received its premiere with the Boston Musica Viva in 1997. Music for Flute and Orchestra has had performances by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony (1997) and the Springfield Symphony Orchestra (1999). His music has been performed by such artists as Phyllis Bryn-Julson, Sanford Sylvan, John Aler, Elsa Charlston, Leonard Raver, Scott Nikrenz, Samuel Sanders, Roman Totenberg, Jane Bryden, Karen Smith Emerson, Marni Nixon, James Maddalena, Douglas Perry, Jon Hum- phrey, and Linda Hirst and under the direction of conductors including Gerard Schwarz, Har- old Rosenbaum, Richard Dufallo, David Gilbert, Edwin London, Theodore Antoniou, Richard Pittman, David Stock, Christopher Kendall, Amy Kaiser, Odaline de la Martinez, Paul Calla- way, Clara Longstreth, Wayne Abercrombie, and David Hodgkins. Perera taught at Syracuse University, Dartmouth College and, from 1971 until 2002, at Smith College, where he held the Elsie Irwin Sweeney Chair in Music. Information about Ronald Perera may be obtained from his website, www.ronaldperera.com. Table of Contents Works for Chorus and Orchestra or Instruments Earthsongs 2 The Golden Door 2 The Light Here Kindled 3 Mass 3 The Outermost House 4 Out of Small Beginnings (from The Light Here Kindled) 5 Psalm 126 5 Three Love Lyrics 5 Three Night Pieces 6 Why I Wake Early 6 Works for Mixed Chorus with Keyboard, CD Accompaniment or a Cappella The Canticle of the Sun 7 The Crown of Praise 7 A Dickinson Set 8 Did You Hear the Angels Sing? 8 As Freedom Is a Breakfastfood 8 Everything That Hath Breath 8 The Garden Hynm 9 Hildegard Magnificat 9 Hold Out Your Hands Over the Earth (from The Outermost House) 9 Laudato sie, mi signore (from The Canticle of the Sun) 9 The Lord’s Prayer 10 Music for the Anglican Service 10 North Country 10 The Star in the Pail 11 Three Love Lyrics 11 Works for Women’s Chorus with Keyboard, CD Accompaniment or a Cappella As Freedom Is a Breakfastfood 12 A Fondness for Music 12 Everything That Hath Breath 12 Hold Out Your Hands Over the Earth (fromThe Outermost House) 12 Hildegard Magnificat 13 The Star in the Pail 13 Three Love Lyrics 13 Works for Men’s Chorus with Keyboard, CD Accompaniment or a Cappella Everything That Hath Breath 14 The Garden Hymn 14 Hold Out Your Hands Over the Earth (from The Outermost House) 14 The Star in the Pail 14 Works for Chorus and Orchestra or Instruments Earthsongs Detail Summary A celebration of some of cummings’ most vivid nature poetry. Commissioned by the Smith College Glee Club, Text by e.e. cummings Theodore Morrison, director. Composed: 1983 Voicing: Soli and SSA chorus or Soli and SATB chorus Duration: 16 min. Accompaniment: 2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, Publisher: ECS Publishing 2 horns, 2 trumpets, percussion (one Catalog No. Women’s Chorus: 4095 player), harp, strings. Or piano. (full score for sale or rental with parts) Movements: 5701-5706 (sale) 1. O sweet spontaneous earth Mixed Chorus: 7608 2. in Just-spring (full score for sale or rental with parts) 3. as is the sea marvelous 7287-7292 (sale) 4. All in green went my love riding 5. when god lets my body be 6. i thank You God “These are sublime pieces, and immediately advance to the front rank of cummings’ settings.” —Fanfare Magazine The Golden Door Detail Summary Commissioned by the New Amsterdam Singers. A cantata based on archives of interviews with immigrants Composed: 1998 who passed through Ellis Island in the early years of the Duration: 23 min 20th century. Publisher: Pear Tree Press Voicing: Speaker and SATB chorus Catalog No. PTM 431 Accompaniment: Flute (doubling alto flute), clarinet (piano vocal score) in Bb (doubling clarinet in A, bass clarinet, alto sax), violin, viola, cello, PTM 431a bass, piano, percussion (one player) (full score for sale or rental with parts) Movements: 1. What is your number? 2. America, I wish I was going 3. The fastest and securest transportation 4. Steerage “Mr. Perera’s work...is an invitingly consonant 5. The Lady with her hand up and occasionally dramatic overview of the 6. Island of hope; island of tears varied paths that the immigrants of several 7. Names nationalities took to Ellis Island, and those immigrants’ first moments here.” —The New York Times 2 The Light Here Kindled Detail Summary Commissioned for the 350th anniversary of Harvard University. Following an opening solo baritone setting Text from William Bradford’s of Governor Bradford’s thanksgiving text, the chorus Of Plimoth Plantation develops a motet out of a moving passage that starts Composed: 1986 “out of small beginnings.” This motet (SATB without solo baritone) available separately. Duration: 8 min. Voicing: Solo Baritone and SATB chorus Publisher: Pear Tree Press Accompaniment: Brass quintet, timpani and organ Catalog No. PTM 411 (full score for sale or rental with parts) PTM 411a (piano vocal score) Mass Detail Summary A setting of the complete five-part Latin Mass. First performed in Washington National Cathedral in 1973 Composed: 1967 in memory of ZeBarney Thorne Phillips, former Dean of the Cathedral. Duration: 25 min Voicing: Solo Soprano, Tenor and Bass, SATB chorus Publisher: Pear Tree Press Accompaniment: Flute (doubling piccolo), oboe, clari- Catalog No. PTM 401 net, bassoon, horn, trumpet, tenor (full score for sale or rental with parts) trombone, bass trombone, percus- PTM 401a sion (2 players), harp, strings (piano-vocal) PTM 402 (two piano) NOTE: Can also be ordered with a two-piano accompaniment.

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