Conductor's Circle

Welcome Music Lover!

The San José Chamber Orchestra and San José Choral Productions are honored to unite once again in our annual December offering “Winter’s Gifts”: a holiday tradition in which we are thankful you have chosen to take part. This year our theme is “Celtica,” highlighting repertoire from or inspired by the musical traditions of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England. We are even featuring a Hanukkah selection whose musical construction marries well with an Irish jig. It is interesting to note that Ireland has an extremely rich Judaic community—one so embedded in the Irish culture that this community considers the hammer dulcimer (an instrument that strongly connotes images of Celtic flavor) to be their instrument.

Our own American musical history has roots that reach deeply into Celtic music. Appalachian folksongs, Shape-Note singing, early American hymnody, fiddling, sea shanties, etc., all come from Celtic musical traditions. It is no wonder that even today, music from this culture inspires us and touches us, as these melodies and harmonies resonante within us at a deep, spiritual core.

As both the San José Chamber Orchestra and San José Choral Productions are committed to a better world through music, we are also committed to honoring the traditions of those who loyally attend our concerts each year. The richness of the cultures in the Bay Area offers us the opportunity to learn and be touched by the observations of all, while we simultaneously celebrate our own sacred festivals. It is our hope that the music shared in this evening’s concert not only strengthens your love of your own personal beliefs, but even more, reinforces how beautiful our world is, and, more importantly, how universal life’s themes are.

We hope you will be inspired to attend the concerts, and share in the evening's delights.

PROGRAM NOTES

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Jerusalem (world premiere) ~ traditional Irish hymn, arr. Michael McGlynn
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“Jerusalem” is an ancient Irish hymn from the 12th-century of unknown authorship. The hymn was also called “Song of Jerusalem—First Carol For Christmas Day.” It was found in both The Kilmore Carols and Christmas Carols of Waddinge and Devereux. The setting of the hymn performed this evening employs two unusual performance techniques: heterophony and aleatoricism. Heterophony is a type of texture characterized by the simultaneous variation of a single melodic line. Such a texture can be regarded as a kind of complex monophony in which there is only one basic melody, but realized at the same time in multiple voices, each of which plays the melody with various embellishments and elaborations. Aleatoricism is the incorporation of chance into the process of creation and/or performance, especially the creation of art or media. The word derives from the Latin word alea, meaning “the rolling of dice.” In the case of “Jerusalem,” each singer is allowed the opportunity to sing the hymn-tune at their own speed, cadencing together a different moment of perfect unisons.

Jerusalem our happy home There Magdalen she has less moan
When shall we come to thee. Likewise there she doth sing;
When shall our sorrow have an end? The happy saints in harmony
Thy joy, when shall we see? Through every street doth ring.

There’s cinnamon that scenteth sweet; Fair Magdalen hath dried her tears;
There palms spring on the ground. She’s seen no more to weep,
No tongue can tell, no heart can think, Nor wet the ringlets of her hair,
What joy do there abound. To wipe our Saviour’s feet.

For evermore the trees bear fruit,
And evermore they do spring
And evermore the saints are glad,
And evermore they sing.

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Mi Yimalel (world premiere) ~ traditional Hanukkah song, arr. Michael Touchi
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Mi Y'malel (or Mi Yimalel) is a very well known Hebrew Chanukah song. The opening line, which literally means "Who can retell the mighty feats of Israel," is a secular rewording of Psalms 106:2, which reads "Who can retell the mighty feats of God." Below is a singable version of this song called "Who Can Retell," with words based on the Hebrew, as well as a literal translation:

Who can tell of the heroic deeds of Israel?
Who can count them??
Yes in every generation a hero arises
To save the people.
Listen!
In those days at this time
The Maccabee saved and redeemed
But in our days the whole people Israel
Will unite, arise, and save.

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The Gartan Mother’s Lullaby ~ arr. Neil Ginsberg
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“Gartan Mother’s Lullaby” is an old Irish song and poem written by Herbert Hughes and Seosamh Mac Cathmhaoil (a penname for Joseph Campbell), first published in Songs of Uladh [Ulster] in 1904. The song is a lullaby by a mother, from the parish of Gartan in County Donegal, to her child. The lyrics refer to a number of figures in Irish mythology, places in Ireland and words in the Irish language. For example, in the second line, the Banshee is referenced— the fairy who guards the Grey Rock (in Irish mythos, the Banshee is a fairy woman). The most famous Banshee of ancient times was that attached to the kingly house of O’Brien, Aibhill [Aoibheall], who haunted the rock of Craglea above Killaloe, near the old palace of Kincora. In A.D. 1014 was fought the battle of Clontarf, from which the aged king, Brian Boru, knew that he would never come away alive, for the previous night Aibhill had appeared to him to tell him of his impending fate.”
Two other figures from Irish lore in the song are The Green Man and Siabhra. It is said if you see the Green Man in the morning, “no ill follows”; but if at night, death or some other terrible misfortune will surely overtake you. He is sometimes called Fear Liath, or the Grey Man. Siabhra, is a generic term for an Irish fairy of any kind. In ancient writings the Tuatha de Danann, or little magicians of the Pagan Irish, were called “siabhra” without distinction. Leanbhan, is an old Irish word for little child.

Sleep, my child, for the red-bee hums
The silent twilight falls:
The Banshee from the Grey Rock comes
To wrap the world in thrall.
A leanbhan, O my child, my joy,
My love, my heart’s-desire,
The cricket sings you lullaby
Beside the dying fire.

Dusk is drawn, and the Green Man’s Thorn
Is wreathed in rings of fog:
Siabhra sails his boat till morn
Upon the Starry Bog.
A leanbhan, O the pale half moon
Hath brimmed her cusp in dew,
And weeps to hear this sad sleep-tune
I sing, my love, to you.

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A Christmas Carol ~ Joshua Shank
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Dickens’s masterpiece, A Christmas Carol, is a story about transformation and the chance for redemption which just happens to be set during the Christmas season. This holiday can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. But in my case (as in Ebenezer Scrooge’s) it is simply a time that serves as a reminder as to how we’re supposed to be treating our “fellow passengers” during the rest of the calendar year. This musical setting of “A Christmas Carol” was commissioned by the Mesa High School A Cappella Choir (Germán Aguilar, conductor), and is dedicated with love to my little sister, Caitlin.
~ Joshua Shank

“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that­­­—as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!” It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that, while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irrestitibly contagious as laughter and good humour.”

Scrooge was better than his word. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.

“A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless it! God bless us, every one!”

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Triptych: III. Threnody ~ Tarik O’Regan
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“Threnody” was commissioned with funds from The RVW Trust for the inaugural concert of the Choir of London conducted by Jeremy Summerly in Christ Church, Spitalfields in December, 2004; the work was subsequently toured by the Choir to Jerusalem and the West Bank.

“I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Bruce Ruben and Judith Clurman, as well as that of my parents, with the collation of the texts. The words were gathered from Some Fruits of Solitude In Reflections And Maxims (William Penn), Death Speaks (Muhammad Rajab Al-Bayoumi, translated by Arthur J. Arberry), Auguries of Innocence (William Blake), and ‘Psalm 133’.”
~ Tarik O’Regan, New York, August 2004

When death takes off the mask, [we] will know one another,
though diverse liveries [we] wear here make [us] strangers.
Tremblest thou when my face appears to thee? Wherefore thy dreadful fears?
Be easy, friend; ‘tis thy truest gain to be far away from the sons of men.
I offer a couch to give thee ease: Shall dreamless slumber so much displease?
To see a World in a Grain of Sand, and a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, and Eternity in an hour.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for [people] to dwell together in unity.

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The Eternal Knot ~ Karl Jenkins
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The Eternal Knot was composed for the compact disc Adiemus IV: The Eternal Knot. Released in 2001, it is the fourth album by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins as part of the Adiemus project. Inspired by Celtic history and mythology, this album served as the soundtrack to the S4C International documentary The Celts. In addition to rich string orchestrations and vocals borrowing from world musical styles common to Adiemus, Jenkins adds the accompaniment of ethnic instruments such as the Uilleann pipes and Carnyx. Moreover, in an effort to make the listener feel more connected to the musical experience, the texts of all of the songs in the Adeimus project are neutral, meaningless syllables, set in a fashion to capture the essence of world musical vocal traditions, without being tied to any specific language or culture. The title of this song derives from the eternal knot or endless knot found in Celtic knotwork, as well as in Taoism, Buddhism, and many other religious traditions in the world (Sanskrit: Shrivatsa; Tibetan: Dpal be’u).

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Pacem: Find Love (from “HEAVEN & EARTH: A Celtic Mass”) ~ Ben Allaway
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Pacem: Find Love was commissioned by the Harmonium Choral Society (Dr. Anne Matlack, conductor), Madison, New Jersey. The peace in Northern Ireland was hard won, and is still now passionately and vigorously maintained through ongoing talks and incremental change. But the people of Northern Ireland have made it hold. Pacem: Find Love lifts up the tenacious spirit of a people who have waited centuries to know the peace they now have, and will never give up. Through this momentous effort they claim divinity’s promise of forgiveness, reconciliation and healing for their people. The Celtic Spirit has prevailed, the darkness lifts, and the Light of the Spirit is shared with all peoples needing encouragement that reconciliation and transformation is possible.

The way is long, so let us go together, The way is hard, so let us help each other,
The way is joyful, let us share the joy! The way is LOVE, the way of peace:
Dona nobis pacem. (Grant us peace)

When father, son, neighbor, and brother turn their arms against each other,
Find love, find peace.
The saints will fear as in their sight men lose their souls to win a fight.

In LOVE there is no killing, St. Paddy said. Pacem (Peace)
In LOVE the Spirit deeply tilling, St. Paddy said. Pacem (Peace)
Find love for all unpityin’ kin. Open your heart and draw them in.
Their arms will harden into stone, frozen before the killing’s done,
Speak prayers so they may understand; And bless them with an open hand.
From vengeful ways they’ll find release, The way is LOVE, the way of peace.

However far, but now, we’re near it, For we have God All-loving, and Spirit.
And as it was always, is now again, And may it be evermore, Amen.
Dona nobis pacem. (Grant us peace)

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Irish Blessing ~ Daniel Hughes
Silent Night ~ Franz Gruber, arr, Paul Sjolund (orchestration D. Hughes)
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This original setting of "Irish Blessing" I composed a few years ago for The Choral Project. The work is an original tune set for four voices, dedicated to the memory of my dearest departed friend Daniel Lee Hooper. I wanted a song that was both warm and bittersweet. I achieved this by composing a melody that shifts through major and minor modes within single phrases. The conclusion of the song with the text "May God hold you in the palm of His hand" is in a slow there, sympblizing the Trinity. In this setting for the Celtica concert, I added instruments to the music, slowly layering them into the texture one by one.

The setting transitions in our traditional arrangement of "Silent Night." The evening's arrangment includes uillean pipes and solo violin to round out the Celtic flavor. The third verse of this setting will be sung in Gaelic, as well.

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine down upon your face,
And the rains fall soft on your fields.
Until we meet again, my friend,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Silent night, holy night!
All is calm, all is bright
‘Round yon Virgin Mother and Child.
Holy infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Oíche Chiúin, oíche Mhic Dé,
Cách ‘na suan, dís araon,
Dís is dílse ‘faire le spéire,
Naíon beag gnaoigheal ceannanntais caomh,
Críost ‘na chodhladh go séimh,
Críost ‘na chodhladh go séimh.