All the Way Home
Saturday, January 18, 2025
5:00 pm
Binkley Sanctuary
Dear Listener,
Thank you for coming!
Today we bring you music that explores the ideas of Home and Memories.
We celebrate the places we love, places we belong.
And we celebrate the family and friends who have helped create a sense of Home for us, and helped us grow into the people we are today.
We celebrate both those that continue our journeys with us and those we’ve had to bid farewell.
Our hearts are with those who have recently lost their homes to fires and storms and violence, whose sense of Home has been disrupted, and who fear losing their homes and having to separate from their families, friends, and communities in the coming times.
Thank you for sharing this evening with us.
Green the Leaves Are Growing
Finnish Folk Song
Adapted from Susan Brumsfield’s teaching
Arr. Leandra Strope
Remarkable this time of year is all the green around us! We’ve talked – and sung – a lot about many colors that go along with the evergreens that surround us.
In This Ancient House,
Momoshiki Ya
Anonymous Japanese poem
Music by Ruth Morris Gray
We have imagined revisiting a house that we lived in long ago, finding it overgrown with moss and ferns, and revisiting the many memories that the house holds for us.
I Remember
Words and Music by Sarah Quartel
A Woman I Once Knew
English Folk Song, arranged by Leandra, Makayla, and SV-One
Oh, a woman I once knew, she had a thousand friends.
They all went up to the top of the hill, and they all went down again.
And when they were up they were up, and when they were down they were down,
And when they were only halfway up they were neither up nor down.
O, a dancing we will go! A-dancing we will go!
We’ll find a friend and sing to the end and never let her go!
This song is our reworking of another song that you may recall. We enjoy dancing it in class and have adapted it to share with you in this performance.
Path to the Moon
Words by Madeline C. Thomas
Music by Eric H. Thiman
Mbombela
Zimbabwe Game Song
In Ndebele, a primary language in Zimbabwe, “Mbombela westimela” means, “Hey, train!” or “The train is coming!” We have invented this stick dance to sound like a train.
Kira! (Count!)
Words and Music by Tracy Wong
From the composer:
This playful composition for 3-part treble choir and percussion is a nod to Malay folk songs that merge counting/play (common in some childhood games) and sage advice. It also celebrates elders in my larger Malaysian community who impart life teachings to young people in a fun and accessible way. I am drawn to this tradition for its beauty in having music as a form of intergenerational community building.
The Sparrow and the Banyan Tree
Story Song from India
In this story, a little brown sparrow is wounded by a child throwing a rock. The bird goes from tree to tree looking for shelter from the approaching storm and is turned away by the palm tree, the mango tree, and the neem tree before she is welcomed by the Banyan tree.
At first glance we thought the palm, mango, and neem trees were unkind, but when we realized that they couldn’t survive the storm and that the sparrow would not have been protected by them, we realized they were helping the sparrow by saying “no” and sending her on to find a more secure hiding place.
A banyan tree is a very large and wide tree that grows in India. It has roots that grow down from its branches like extra trunks, giving it a wide and strong platform. Many animals find homes there, and shelter in both safe and dangerous times.
Vichten
Words by Arthur Arsenault
Music by Angèle Arsenault
Arranged by Hart Rouge
From the editor:
The Acadians are a vibrant and distinct French culture in the Canadian mosaic, descended from settlers mainly from Northern France who first arrived in 1604 to the area known today as southwest Nova Scotia. After building communities throughout Canada’s east coast provinces, the Acadians were expulsed from their lands by the British colonial authorities from 1755 ot 1763, and their homes and crops burned. Over 10,000 Acadians were deported to various parts of the world, some of whom settled in Louisiana where, over time, the word ‘Acadian’ – as spoken in the Acadian patois – was understood by English language speakers as ‘Cajun.’ Today, Acadian culture is thriving, and music is a huge part of everyday life. It is not uncommon for everyone in a traditional Acadian family to sing and play an instrument!
Many people in Canada mistake “Vichten” as a traditional Acadian folk song. It is not. It is a newly composed folk song that was written by Arthur Arsenault for his children and made popular by his daughter Angèle Arsenault. Angèle … recorded and performed “Vichten” throughout her long career as an Acadian folk singer and TV host.
The words of “Vichten” are made up of nonsense syllables, similar to Scottish “mouth music” where the voices are intended to mimic instruments.
All the way home
Text written and inspired by members of the Radcliffe Ladies’ Choir as they reflected on their motto, “friendship through singing”
Piece by Sarah Quartel
Shenandoah
United States Folk Song
arranged for Sisters’ Voices by Leandra and Sisters’ Voices singers over the years
O Shenandoah, I long to see you,
Away, you rolling river.
O Shenandoah, I long to see you,
Away, I’m bound away, cross the wide Missouri.
I long to see your smiling valley
And hear your rolling river.
I long to see your smiling valley,
Away, I’m bound away, cross the wide Missouri.
O Shenandoah, I love your daughter!
Away, you rolling river.
O Shenandoah, I love your daughter!
Away, I’m bound away, cross the wide Missouri.
‘Tis seven long years since last I’ve seen you,
Away, you rolling river.
‘Tis seven long years since last I’ve seen you,
Away, I’m bound away, cross the wide Missouri.
Shenandoah is a beautiful folk song that we return to over and over because it is so satisfying to sing. The singers adore it because of the melody as well as the simple and progressively difficult harmony. As is the case with much of the music on this program, Shenandoah is a song of memory and longing, of connection to a place and of belonging in that place.