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- Songs of Innocence and Dreams.
May 2008. Our spring concert consisted of lullabies and
nursery rhymes by composers both classic and modern,
as well as folk song settings from England, Canada,
Samoa, Wales, and elsewhere.
- Herself a Rose. January
2008. To celebrate winter, the concert featured a variety of works both
sacred and secular. Highlights included Benjamin Britten's
Ceremony of Carols and the
premiere of a new piece, “Herself A Rose,”
by Eleanor Daley in honor of WVC founder Mary Lycan.
Also included were Magnificats
by Porpora, Dufay and Lana
Walter, and pieces by Byrd and Purcell.
- Welcome Love.
May 2007. Featured a second performance of our
last-commissioned
work, Lana Walter's Welcome Love. The four a cappella
settings of 17th-century love poems were a chorus favorite
from the moment we began preparing them for their premiere
in 2004. "She treats us like grownups," was the
response from many singers to Ms. Walter's user-friendly but
never trivial vocal writing for all parts.
- Courage to Grow and Change.
January 2007. Featured Amy Beach's The Chambered
Nautilus, a major work with lush, impressionistic harmonies
we first performed in 2000. Its text, by Oliver Wendell Holmes,
challenges the listener to summon the courage to grow and
change. We also premiered a new work by Eleanor Epstein.
Funded by a major gift from the Gidwitz family in honor of
President Sue's bat mitzvah, these newly-commissioned arrangements
of Hebrew songs will make a significant contribution
to the repertoire of Jewish music for women's voices.
- Dancing Day: Music of the British Isles.
May 2006. Hope you didn't miss
our a cappella sound on Gustav Holst's "Ave Maria"!
Benjamin Britten, William Byrd, Imogen Holst,
John Tavener, and John Rutter; and a Scottish folk song, "Tarry
Wool." The centerpiece was a choral suite, The
Dancers, by Welsh composer Grace Williams. This rediscovered
work from 1954 has wonderful texts by, among others, Hilaire
Belloc and May Sarton, and is scored for strings and harp, as
well as soprano soloist and women's chorus.
- Angels, Birds, and Witches.
January 2006. Mendelssohn's "Surrexit pastor bonus," with its
Easter angel dialogue; Emma Lou Diemer's Hope is the
Thing , a suite of Emily Dickinson settings with references
to our featured friends; and John Govedas's "Mulligatawny
Macbeth," a setting of the Witches' Song from Macbeth
replete with shrieks and cackles. This concert included
guest instrumentalists on oboe and organ.
- She
Sells Sea Shells. May 2005. A salt-water program featuring Amy Beach’s
The Sea Faeries, the Afro-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s
“From the Green Heart of the Waters,” Leonie Holmes’s
“The Estuary”, and a French folk song, “Roulez
juenes gens, roulez,” about the girls who go down to the
docks to meet the sailors.
- Yonders
Mountain.
January 2005. From Zion, the temple mount in Jerusalem, to our own
Appalachians. This concert was a musical mountain
tour. Highlights: Nicola Porpora’s “Ecce nunc”
(1742) in its first modern performance; Arvo Pärt’s
“Peace upon you, Jerusalem,” Schubert’s “Coronach,”
and a folk song, “At the foot of yonders mountain,”
collected and arranged by the folklorist Annabel Morris Buchanan.
- Oh Canada. May, 2004.
A chronological sampler of Candian pieces: music of indigenous peoples; folk songs
imported from France, the British Isles, and many other countries; and
performancse of European sacred works.
- My Spirit Rejoices. February, 2004.
A “best of” program including favorites from our first decade
and a newly-commissioned work: music from medieval convents, 18th century
Venetian conservatories, 19th century European choral societies,
and American colleges and women’s club choirs.
- American Quilt. May 2003. Pieces involving quilt-like juxtapositions. A medieval
mystical text unexpectedly set over a repeated scat pattern, or to
vibraphone and marimba accompaniment. Familiar folk songs with interpolated
lyrics, or even a no-holds-barred swing piano accompaniment. Blues rhythm
and canonic counterpoint, not often found on the same program, coexisting
in the same piece. The result wass a vibrant and engaging repertoire,
most enjoyable for us to prepare.
- Seasons
of Her Life May 2002. Music illustrating just that, including
"The Harp Weaver", Elinor Remick Warren's musical adaptation of
Edna St. Vincent Millay's 1922 Pulitzer Prize-winning poem.
- In My Mother's House February 2002. Songs about the Virgin
Mary, and songs about "other" mothers, including "Nancy Hanks"
by Katherine K. Davis, and the Triangle area premiere of Lana
Walter's "Magnificat".
-
Where There Is Love May 2001. Music expressing different
aspects of love, including "Three Flower Songs" by Amy Beach,
and "Mag auch heiss das Scheiden brennen" by Mary Wurm.
- Songs of the City February 2001. The Triangle area premiere
of Gwyneth Walker's "My Girls", on texts by the African-American
poet Lucille Clifton.
- A Room of Her Own September 2000. Music honoring the times
and places women have found to compose or to sing music together,
including an arrangement by Amy Beach of Oliver Wendell Holmes'
poem "The Chambered Nautilus", pieces by Hildegard of Bingen and
Ysaye Barnwell (of Sweet Honey in the Rock), and an audience sing-a-long
of "The March of the Women", a suffrage song, by Dame Ethel Smyth.
- Pacific Rim: A Farewell to Old England Forever May 2000.
Our first commissioned piece: "Magnificat 'Regina coeli'" by
Katherine Dienes of New Zealand, as well as "Past Life Melodies"
by Sarah Hopkins and Helen Caskie's "Three New Zealand Country
Songs".
- Promised Land: Music for Passover and Easter May 1999.
"Go Down, Moses" and other spirituals by Marylou India Jackson,
three sections of Lana Walter's "Petite Mass", and music by Katherine
Dienes*.
- Music for a New World January 1999
- Music Hath Charms May 1998
- Lilith, Diana, Mary January 1998
- Wade in the Water: Spirituals and other Music May 1997.
Including "Dream Song" by Mabel Wheeler Daniels.
-
Christmas Concert December 1996
- Cradle of Fire: Women's Experiences of War June 1996. Ranked
by Spectator magazine as one of the Triangle's ten best
classical concerts of 1996. Included "The Captives' Hymn" and
"Largo from Dvorak's New World Symphony" by Margaret Dryburgh.
- Vivaldi Magnificat January 1996
- Mystery, Madness, Nonsense May 1995
- Votes for Women January 1995. Revivals of songs from the
women's suffrage movement, including "Votes for Women" by Mary
Louise Carlton, and "Three March-songs" by Adelaide Thomas.
- Spring concert May 1994. "Three Shakespeare Songs*" by
Amy Beach and spirituals arranged by Mary Lou India Jackson.
- Images of Women in Music January 1994. "March of the Women*"
and "Laggard Dawn" by Ethel Smyth, and "Les sirenes" by Lili
Boulanger.
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