We begin with an arrangement of John D. Loudermilk’s “This Little Bird”, a song made popular in 1965 by Marianne Faithfull and recorded by many others. We were inspired by singer-songwriter Jewel’s sweet and simple rendition for two voices.

There’s a little bird somebody sent
Down to the earth to live on the wind.
Born on the wind, and she sleeps on the wind,
This little bird somebody sent.

Light and fragile and feathered sky blue,
Thin and graceful, the sun shining through,
She flies so high up in the sky,
Way out of reach of human eyes.

And the only time that she touches ground
Is when that little bird dies.

Minnesota-based composer Abbie Betinis wrote this canon just after completing cancer treatment for the second time.

My family and I sent it out as our annual Christmas card in 2009. And – while I couldn't have foreseen it at the time – it would turn into my mantra over the next year, while I underwent a third cancer diagnosis and bone marrow transplant.

My cousin Sarah Riley and I discovered the text quite by accident. In October 2009, our grandfather, the Rt. Rev. John H. Burt (a.k.a Christmas reveler and merry-maker, lover of music and literature, and inspiring leader and activist) had died. After his funeral, and after an impromptu family round-sing (common in the Burt family), Sarah and I were sitting on Grandpa's old couch, reading through some of the sermons he had written and delivered throughout his long life. Sarah is co-director of an incredible program called High Rocks, a comprehensive and unique school for girls founded by her mom, Susan Burt, in the mountains of rural West Virginia.

Sarah and I realized that Grandpa had quoted this lovely Victor Hugo text in a few sermons over the years, always to inspire courage in the face of adversity. It struck me as a surprisingly hopeful text befitting a difficult year, but it also moved me to tears to think of the work that my Aunt Susie and now my cousin herself, sitting there next to me on the couch, are doing to change the world – one girl at a time.

So I dedicate this carol to High Rocks for Girls. May High Rocks continue to educate, empower, and inspire each girl to know that “she hath wings.

– Abbie Betinis

Be like the bird that, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her – and sings – knowing she hath wings.

Canadian composer and educator Sarah Quartel’s works have been performed by choirs across the world and we are delighted to share a few of her pieces today. We love the unencumbered joy of “Songbird” and the opportunity to sing in unison.

I am a Songbird; I will sing anything. Give me a tune, I will spin you gold.
Closer you come to the Songbird weaving, stronger the thread of the music's hold.
Feel in the breeze a breath, a soaring song to you, and hear me say:
"I am a Songbird; I will sing anything. Follow the breeze and come my way, come my way!"

One little bird on a branch sits fanning amber wings to the passersby.
Two little birds in flight are threading webs of gold in an endless sky.
Three little birds with brushes painting moonlit sighs in the height of day.
Four little birds with voices gleaming breathe to the wind singing, "come my way!"

Sing little bird so sweetly.
Drown my fears completely.

Five little birds with feathers fluffing stretch and spread in the midday sun.
Six little birds are cooing, humming, drawing the eyes of everyone.
Seven little birds in fountains splashing, droplets soar, they fawn and play.
Eight little birds raise voices higher, breathe to the wind singing, "come my way!"

Sing little bird so sweetly.
Drown my fears completely.

Fly, little Songbirds, to the horizon. Land meets sky and sky meets sea.
Dance, little Songbirds, flick your feathers, move the current, carry me!
Sing, little Songbirds, call to your lovers. Draw them in completely.
You, little Songbirds, you can sing anything. I follow the wind and I come your way!

Erasure poetry has fascinated me for a long time. When I started composing, I found that creating erasure poems to use as lyrics allowed me to start a new piece that was already rooted in cultural relevance. For this piece, I took the words from “Blackbird” and rearranged them to point specifically to the topic of racism in this country, as it was being feverishly discussed in 2020. What emerged for me was how earnest activism and performative allyship often overlap imperceptibly, sharing language and sentiment, and the complexity and inevitable missteps of addressing and attempting to heal our racial divisions.

–Laura Mercado-Wright

Night of singing blackbirds Blackbird, sing
Broken wings all your life
Arise, this moment, free
These sunken eyes will learn to see
Into the light of a dark black night
All your life you were waiting
You were waiting for us to sing
Blackbird, fly

We return to a work by Sarah Quartel. Her four-movement piece Sanctum is a setting of the Requiem text inspired by the landscape of the west coast of Canada. Each movement depicts an aspect of Vancouver Island, exploring landscape as a place of healing and sanctuary. We present “Agnus Dei” and “Lux aeterna” which seek to evoke the freshness of the wind and the sky after the rain, respectively.

Agnus Dei,
qui tollis peccata mundi,
dona eis requiem,
sempiternam requiem.

O Lamb of God,
that takest them away from the sins of the world,
grant them rest,
eternal rest.

Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine,
cum sanctis tuis in aeternum,
quia pius es.
Lux perpetua luceat eis;
cum sanctis tuis in aeternum.

Eternal light shine on them, O Lord,
with thy saints forever,
for thou art good.
Light perpetual shine on them;
with thy saints forever.

Maddalena Casulana was an Italian composer, lutenist and singer of the late Renaissance. She is generally accepted as the first female composer in the history of western music to have had a whole book of her music printed and published.

Her first book of madrigals was dedicated to Isabella de' Medici and in it, she writes of her desire to “show to the world…the vain error of men, who so much believe themselves to be the masters of the highest gifts of intellect, that they think those gifts cannot be shared equally by women.”

“Il vostro dipartir” was published in 1570 in Casulana’s second book of madrigals for four voices.

Il vostro dipartir, donna, mi diede noiosa vita
E con si dubbia spene di voi, caro mio bene
Ch’alti si n’pera di ciò fia cagione
Le vostr’alme virtut’ al mondo sole
E rio timor mi spinge ond’ i miei lumi
Sembran d’amare lacrime duo fiumi.

Your departure, lady, leaves my life insipid
And my hope for you is so unsure, my dearest,
That I aspire to nothing less
Than your soul, the only virtue in the world.
And fear moistens my eyes repeatedly
As if they were two streams of bitter tears.

from A Point on a Slow Curve
Text and music by Dana Lyn (b. 1974)

Dana Lyn  is a Brooklyn-based composer, violinist/fiddler, pianist, visual artist, and enthusiastic bass player, and her favorite thing to do is to make albums. She has collaborated with Tony Award-winning songwriters Stew and Heidi Rodewald, actor-directors Ethan Hawke and Vincent D’Onofrio, 2017 MacArthur Fellow Taylor Mac, and Irish poet Louis de Paor, among many others. Her own musical projects include Mother Octopus, a sextet; Slim Bone Head Volt, a spoken-word and music collaboration with Vincent D’Onofrio; and a violin and guitar duo with guitarist Kyle Sanna. She currently plays in the band of the Tony and Grammy Award-winning musical, Hadestown. 

Lyn recently released A Point on a Slow Curve, a suite of music for septet and four voices, inspired by visual artist Jay DeFeo’s monumental painting, The Rose (1958-1966), which stands 11 feet tall and weighs almost a ton. “Daytime Atheist” is the fifth movement of this work, the premiere of which took place in Austin in January 2019 and featured Page and Adrienne as singers.

sirens of doubt and unease
drowning the memory of sleep achieved
of evenings perched
a distance away from our dreams

what I believe falls to nothing
when thoughts like these uninvited
are cited, ten thousand nights
we lurch towards a state of reprieve

calm were the nights before these
when we accepted what we couldn’t see
halfway believing we’re part of the rainfall
we become part of the chord

what I believe in the daylight
makes me forget how at nighttime
I resign but still cannot find
a way in or out of extremes

Remel M. Derrick is a composer, church musician, and choir director based out of Abilene, Texas, who was inspired by the poetry of American poet Sara Teasdale for this piece.

This beautiful poem…is filled with insightful emotion, and is an accurate description of the human love relationship. The irregular meter was chosen because of the inconsistency and the irregularity of loving someone and anyone. The minor key depicts the overall sad tone of the poem, and the F major chord found in measure 30 on the word “joy” seems to come as a surprise, but returns to the f minor tonality for the rest of the piece. The resolute determination to go on, even while suffering, is a major theme of this work.

– Remel Derrick

I have come to bury love
Beneath a tree,
In the forest tall and black
Where none can see.

I shall put no flowers at his head,
Nor stone at his feet,
For the mouth I loved so much
Was bittersweet.

I shall go no more to his grace,For the woods are cold.
I shall gather as much of joy
As my hands can hold.

I shall stay all day in the sun
Where the wide winds blow,
But oh, I shall cry at night
When none will know.

Composer Caroline Shaw composed “Dolce Cantavi” for TENET Vocal Artists and used as her inspiration a poem written by 16th-century Italian poet Francesca Turini Bufalini.

Bufalini was the first Italian woman to write autobiographically, detailing her life experiences, emotions, and even the places she lived in her poems. After being driven out of her home in Umbria by her sons, she sought refuge at the Colonna Palace in Rome with Duchess Lucrezia Tomacelli. She was very happy there for eight years until the Duchess’s sudden death, forcing Bufalini to return to Umbria. This poem speaks of the lovely little bird who has gone away and we imagine Bufalini speaking directly to the Duchess, longing for her impossible return.

Vago augellin, che per quei rami ombrosi
dolce cantavi a minüir mie pene,
di sentirti al mio cor gran desir viene
per fare in tutto i giorni miei giocosi.

Deh vieni, e teco mena i più famosi
cantor che quella selva in sen ritiene,
ché goderete in queste rive amene,
ed a l'estivo dì starete ascosi.

Il boschetto vi attende, e 'l bel giardino
là dove in fra le fronde e l'onda e l'ora
gareggian mormorando a me vicino.

A cantar sorgeremo in sul mattino:
io con le Muse invocarò l'aurora,
e voi col vostro gorgheggiar divini.

Lovely little bird, who, among those shady branches,
used to sing so sweetly to mitigate my sorrows,
a great desire comes to my heart to hear you again,
to make my days complete in their joy.

Come, and bring with you the most famous singers
that the forest nurtures in its breast,
for you will have the pleasure of these fair waters
and be hidden away from the heat of the summer day.

The little wood awaits you, and the lovely garden where,
among the leaves, the ripples and the breeze
compete in their murmuring beside me.

We will rise together before sunrise:
I will herald the dawn with the Muses,
And you with your warbling divine.

In the midst of the pandemic, I spent a lot of time talking to a young friend of mine, who had been my voice student from grades 6-12. He was a sophomore at Lawrence University in the spring of 2020, and was sent home to complete the next few semesters from his parents’ house in Austin. I felt so much compassion for the interruption of his life, and the insecurity of the coming years. I found myself thinking of him often during those months, and that turned into musings in writing, and then finally developed into this piece, originally written for tenor/baritone/bass. Inertia is an acknowledgment and an encouragement for David, and for all my students and young friends who have weathered this time with courage. It was premiered on David’s undergraduate senior recital in May 2022.

– Laura Mercado-Wright

Last night, I dreamt an apple fell from its tree
And instead of resting on the ground
Burst forth through the crust of the Earth
As if the God Inertia, Negator Of Art,
Son of Ignorance and BlissLost his grip in that moment
and we went careening through space
For I was now that apple,
Sudden with purpose and free of external force.
Seeking my own way,
Spinning,
Elated
Thrust in an instant into the infinite possibilities
of every and only, never and yet
My notions suspended,
Time was no more

From this silence
A fresh spark
(flashing, daring to catch)
The friction of free thought
(flashing, daring to catch)
My hands, my heart
Flames pulsed and rose, called me by name
And said,
“Forge yourself here, in the fire of this moment, in the fire of a new momentum.”
A new moment, clocks chimed again

When I awoke,
My heart still pulsing with flame,
I knew in that moment
The true weight of sand and flesh,
And flung myself to the open windowJust as an apple began to fall

Maurice Duruflé’s Tota pulchra es is one of a set of four motets derived from Gregorian chant melodies. It venerates Mary, the mother of Christ, and we love it for its delicate melodic lines and range of textures and dynamics.

Tota pulchra es, Maria.
Et macula originalis non est in Te.
Vestimentum tuum candidum quasi nix,
Et facies tua sicut sol.
Tu gloria Ierusalem.
Tu laetitia Israel.
Tu honorificentia populi nostri.

You are all beautiful, Mary,
and the original stain [of sin] is not in you.
Your clothing is white like snow,
And your face is like the sun.
You are the glory of Jerusalem,
you are the joy of Israel,
you give honor to our people.

Adrienne bought this piece on a whim, sight unseen, and without having heard any recordings of it, only knowing that Hailstork was a venerated living composer. Based on a passage from Philippians 4, the piece was composed to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Virginia Children’s Chorus but we feel like it’s accessible to people of all ages and loved its lush harmonies and sense of wonder and introspection.

Think on these things
Whatever is true, whatever is honest, whatever is noble,
whatever is just, whatever is kind, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely.
If there is any virtue, anything worthy of praise.
Think on these things

This arrangement of a traditional Appalachian folk song by Minnesota-based composer, conductor, and singer Linda Kachelmeier has challenged us to find a new voice and connect to an age-old story. It’s a display of empowerment through heartbreak and desperation that we found very moving.

Don’t sing love songs, you’ll wake my mother,
She’s sleepin’ here right by my side.
And in her right hand, a silver dagger,
She says that I can’t be your bride.

“All men are false” says my mother,”
“They’ll tell you wicked, lovin’ lies
And the very next evenin’, they’ll court another
And leave you alone to pine and sigh.”

My daddy is a handsome devil
He's got a chain five miles long,
And on every link a heart does dangle
Of another maid he's loved and wronged.

Go court another tender maiden
And see if she will be your wife
For I've been warned and I've decided
To sleep alone all of my life.

American composer Joan Szymko was inspired to write "As a Woman" after having participated in the 1983 encirclement of the Boeing Cruise Missile Plant in Kent, WA sponsored by the Puget Sound Women's Peace Camp.

This event had been inspired by the massive protests to a proposed American cruise missile site at Greenham Common, England. I saw this quote by Virginia Woolf painted on a placard being carried by another participant. The quote is from Virginia Woolf's "Three Guineas" (1937), a long essay on her views about war and women, and how to prevent war.

– Joan Szymko

As a woman, I have no country
As a woman, I want no country
As a women, the whole world is my country*

(* original wording of third line: "as a woman, my country is the whole world")

One of the first ideas we had when VAMP formed in March 2020 was to develop our own arrangement of The Star Spangled Banner. I started with the melody and Adrienne came up with a descending chromatic soprano line that really inspired me, and I decided to create an erasure poem of our four stanza national anthem, highlighting and pointing to the words within the lyrics that harbored a deeper, more poignant meaning. It felt particularly relevant to reflect on these lyrics during the tumultuous summer of 2020, when many of us were re-examining our relationship to this country, its ideals and each other.

– Laura Mercado-Wright

O say, can you see we hailed the perilous fight?
We watched the red glare through the night

O say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave, ore the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Don’t seen through mists of deep, haughty, dread silence,
Fitfully half concealed, half disclosed

O say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave, ore the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Where war and battle their blood washed out,
No refuge from terror, flight, gloom, or grave

O say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave, ore the land of the free and the home of the brave?

When freemen stand between victory and peace, praise power and conquer,
In God we trust

O say, does that banner yet wave
Ore the free and the brave?