Music by Shawn Brogan Allison
Lyrics by Laura Mercado-Wright

In the weeks leading up to the birth of my nephew Jae, this poem came to me all at once, almost fully formed. I asked my dear friend and composer, Shawn Allison, to set it to music, and he agreed.—LMW

It’s time to slow down
And just put it all away for now.
Rest your head and close your eyes,
And drift away to far away,
Just for now.

And while you dream
I’ll watch over you,
Even if I’m far away too.

Dream sweet dreams 
And when you wake, we’ll do our best to make them all come true,
Because I love you,
And because that’s what we dreamers do.

Music and poetry by Jennifer Bloom

This past January, VAMP got the chance to collaborate with Austin poet and songwriter Jennifer Bloom and composer Justice Phillips to bring Bloom’s poetry to life. Bloom set a few of her own poems as songs, including Primordial Dream.  She described her inspiration for it as such:

“When I’m traveling and I encounter something that's different or unusual, I tend to approach it with curiosity. But when I'm home in my daily life and I encounter something that's out of the ordinary, I often move more towards judgment. 

One day I was driving around a parking lot here in Austin, trying to find a spot. I was getting really frustrated and annoyed and a thought popped into my head–What if I imagined that I'm a tourist here?  Not just a tourist here in Austin, but a tourist here on planet Earth, observing the Human Experience.  Noticing the way that people act and respond and interact with each other and the environment.  I kind of liked this little thought experiment, so I kept doing it, and over time, I started to ask another question. If I'm a tourist on planet Earth, then where did I come from?  I started to imagine my connection to the vast universe of life.

I started to imagine that everything that exists now was once dreamed by those who came before. Those who are beyond this personal experience.  And then I realized it's true. Everything that exists now was once imagined or dreamed or ideated by those who came before.  And if everything that exists now was once offered through the prayers and dreams and ideas and imagination of those before, then we can offer our prayers and dreams and hopes and wishes not only for the present but to the future.  A future we may never know or realize. So, imagine this: through the Milky Way galaxy, there's a river of prayers streaming through the cosmos.  Receiving and beaming hopes and dreams and prayers across time and in all directions.  What prayer would you offer to this dream?”–Jennifer Bloom

J.S. Bach (1685-1750), arr. Pedrotti Bingamon
Text from Luke 1:54-1:55f

Last year, VAMP performed as part of the Victoria Bach Festival and we had such a great time. But we couldn’t perform at a Bach festival without a little bit of Bach! As you have probably guessed, Bach didn’t write much for 5 treble voices a cappella, so we endeavored to make our own. VAMP member Adrienne Pedrotti Bingamon took a couple of her favorites and arranged them for VAMP, introducing vocal lines in place of instruments and occasionally altering octaves and exchanging parts to achieve fluid voice leading and cater to our ranges. The result is a new and beautiful vocal texture that we hope honors the great master’s original work.

We start with Suscepit Israel from Bach’s Magnificat which didn't take too much maneuvering.  It was originally scored as a duet for two sopranos and an alto, along with unison strings and a wind instrument (first a trumpet in 1723 and then rewritten for two oboes 10 years later).  We pass the vocal and instrumental lines back and forth and you’ll hear a sustained line in the upper voices–the “tonus peregrinus” chant line that Bach used as an instrumental cantus firmus.  The trio is in Latin, as was popular in Leipzig at the time, but the cantus firmus includes a nod to the traditional Lutheran German translation.  You might recognize the “tonus peregrinus” (“wandering tone”) chant from the Introit of Mozart’s Requiem and the Miserere Mei by Allegri, among other works. 

Suscepit Israel puerum suum, 
recordatus misericordiae suae.

He has taken up his child/servant Israel, 
mindful of his mercy.

trans. Michael Marissen and Daniel R. Melamed

Jesu, meine Freude is Bach’s longest and most musically complex motet, with 11 movements and up to five voice parts, a rarity for Bach. It was named after a Lutheran hymn by Johann Crüger and features the hymn tune in all the odd-numbered movements including this one, the ninth movement, where the altos present the cantus firmus intermittently with text from the fifth stanza of the hymn. It was normal during Bach’s time for Lutheran funerals to present death as being a sort of welcome comfort, so “Gute Nacht” serves to renounce all things earthly in favor of the divine. We have once again arranged this movement specifically for VAMP, taking turns with each of the four vocal lines.  Bach excluded basses from the movement, perhaps symbolizing the lack of a firm foundation, and wrote the tenor line (now being sung by us all) so that it dodges every which way, frequently averting our desire for a strong cadence and making the listener feel even more unstable. For this performance, we’re saying goodnight to our mistakes and forgiving ourselves for being human.

Gute Nacht, o Wesen,
Das die Welt erlesen,
Mir gefällst du nicht.
Gute Nacht, ihr Sünden,
Bleibet weit dahinten,
Kommt nicht mehr ans Licht!
Gute Nacht, du Stolz und Pracht,
Dir sei ganz, du Lasterleben,
Gute Nacht gegeben!

Good night, oh [corrupted] essence
That the world has chosen;
You do not please me.
Good night, you sins;
Remain far behind;
Come no more into the light
Good night, you pride and splendor;
To you, you life of vice, be altogether
Bid good night.

trans. Michael Marissen and Daniel R. Melamed

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.

Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)

Hildegard von Bingen was a 12th-century Benedictine abbess and polymath who was primarily known as a poet and visionary for most of history, but her contributions to the musical canon have become much better understood in the last 30 years, largely as a result of the feminist movement. Hildegard probably never would have considered herself a composer and in fact, might have even denounced the feminist movement which contributed to her fame. She was very conservative, even in her own time, and thought that men and women had fixed, separate roles in society. Nevertheless, she was instrumental to the development of music. She felt that music was the highest form of human activity and that singing was a sacred act. She created the earliest known “morality play” (Ordo Virtutum) and a collection of 77 sacred chants referred to as the “Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations.” O Virtus Sapientiae is an antiphon dedicated to Wisdom, “whose encompassing orbit revolves around all things”. We have introduced different drone notes and vocal techniques to this beautiful chant line.

O virtus Sapientie,
que circuiens circuisti
comprehendendo omnia
in una via que habet vitam
tres alas habens,
quarum una in altum volat
et altera de terra sudat
et tercia undique volat.
Laus tibi sit, sicut te decet,
O Sapientia.

O gravity of wisdom,
Whose encompassing orbit
Revolves around all things
On a single circuit that bounds life around.
You have three wings:
one soars above into the heights,
one from the earth exudes,
and all about now flies the third.
Praise be to you, as you deserve.
O wisdom.

Karen L. U. Kahan ( b. 1963)

This anthem of feminine strength and empowerment sounds like it could have been written centuries ago by Vikings, but was actually introduced to the modern folk song collection in 1990 by Karen L. U. Kahan, who uses the stage name Wyndreth Berginsdottir. Kahan is a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, an international community pursuing research and re-creation of pre-17th-century skills, arts, combat, and culture. The composer encourages free use of her work saying, “If you find strength and power and your own voice in it, this is your song . . . We are half of the world and we have been taught to speak softly and behave mildly because we are easier to control that way . . . Whoever you are, you have a voice that cannot be silenced. Together, our voices cannot be unheard.”

I am my mother's savage daughter,
the one who runs barefoot cursing sharp stones.
I am my mother's savage daughter,
I will not cut my hair, I will not lower my voice.

My mother's child is a savage,
She looks for her omens in the colors of stones,
In the faces of cats, in the fall of feathers,
In the dancing of fire and the curve of old bones.

My mother's child dances in darkness,
And sings heathen songs by the light of the moon,
And watches the stars and renames the planets,
And dreams she can reach them with a song and a broom.

Now we all are brought forth out of darkness and water,
Brought into this world through blood and through pain,
And deep in our bones, the old songs are wakening,
So sing them with voices of thunder and rain.

We are our mother's savage daughters,
The ones who run barefoot cursing sharp stones.
We are our mother's savage daughters,
We will not cut our hair, We will not lower our voice.

In 2018, Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris produced a book called The Lost Words Spells. The prompt of the book was the editing of the ‘Oxford Junior Dictionary’ in recent years. The junior edition of the Oxford Dictionary is aimed at readers ages seven and up and since 2007 the editors have removed from the book many words used to denote/describe things of nature– some of them relatively common words, such as: acorn, bluebell, ivy, fern, moss, blackberry, dandelion, lark, raven, heron, starling, hazel, heather, goldfinch, grey seal, otter and kingfisher.

The editing body of the OED had determined that the words were of little and lessening use to the modern child. Youngsters weren’t hob-nobbing with hedgehogs and wrens (also excised) and frogs and buttercups (another casualty!), and so needn’t be introduced to words that served well only with regards to the out-of-doors. They excused their actions on the grounds that they needed room for other, newer words with greater relevance to the modern child. Like: attachment, blog, broadband, chatroom, database, committee, and voice-mail.

In 2015, authors Margaret Atwood, Helen Macdonald, and MacFarlane, among other novelists and nature writers, expressed their dismay in an open letter to Oxford University Press. “Childhood is undergoing profound change; some of this is negative; and the rapid decline in children’s connections to nature is a major problem,” they wrote.

This song, The Lost Words Blessing was written in Scottish Gaelic folkloric form by a group of European musicians – Julie Fowlis, Karine Polwart, Seckou Keita, Kris Drever, Rachel Newton, Beth Porter, Jim Molyneux, Kerry Andrew. The form is inspired by blessings in Scottish Gaelic, particularly from a beautiful collection of charms and incantations called Carmina Gadelica. It is offered both in hope and light, and in grief for the losses yet to come.

Enter the wild with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you travel far from heather, crag and river
May you like the little fisher, set the stream alight with glitter
May you enter now as otter without falter into water

Look to the sky with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you journey on past dying stars exploding
Like the gilded one in flight, leave your little gifts of light
And in the dead of night my darling,
find the gleaming eye of starling
Like the little aviator, sing your heart to all dark matter

Walk through the world with care, my love
And sing the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you stumble through machair sands eroding
Let the fern unfurl your grieving, let the heron still your breathing
Let the selkie swim you deeper, oh my little silver-seeker
Even as the hour grows bleaker, be the singer and the speaker
And in city and in forest, let the larks become your chorus
And when every hope is gone, let the raven call you home

This poignant song was written by American composer Bobby Troup who also wrote “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66.” It was performed and recorded numerous times, most notably by the Beach Boys, who also later added lyrics of their own in tribute to James Dean when he died. This vocal arrangement is by the Four Freshmen, who we personally think did it best, and speaks to the way we experience love in our lives and how powerful it can be.

There’s a story told
of a very gentle boy
and the girl who wore his ring.
Through the wintry snow,
the world they knew was warm
for their hearts were full of spring.

As the days grew old
and the nights passed into time
and the weeks and years took wing,
gentle boy, tender girl,
their love remained still young
for their hearts were full of spring.

Then one day they died
and their graves were side by side
on a hill where robins sing.
And they say violets
grow there the whole year round,
for their hearts were full of spring.

Magister Albericus ( -1141) from Codex Calixtinus no. 147, arr. Johnson

We have Danny Johnson of the Texas Early Music Project (TEMP) to thank for this beautiful medieval piece which first appeared in the Codex Calixtinus, a manuscript named in honor of Pope Calixtus II from around 1140.  Page performed it along with another member of TEMP as part of their Medieval Pilgrimage concert in 2023 and we just fell in love with the interplay of voices and had to perform it ourselves. The Codex Calixtinus was essentially a guidebook for spiritual pilgrims travelIng the Camino de Santiago in Spain, detailing the miracles of St. James, the routes to the shrine, available lodgings, sights to see along the way, and the customs of the locals. Ad superni regis decus praises St. James with two voices of equal importance and a free rhythmic style that creates an ebb and flow effect unlike the relative calm of Gregorian chant.

Ad superni regis decus
Qui continet omnia, 
Celebramus leti tua, Iacobe, sollempnia. 
Secus litus galilee contempsisti propria.  Sequens Christum predicasti ipsius imperia. 
Tu petisti iuxta Christum
Tunc sedere nescius, 
Sed nunc sedes in cohorte duodena alcius. 
Prothomartir duodenus fuisti in patria. 
Primam sedem duodenam possides in gloria. 
Fac nos ergo interesse polo absque termino. 
Ut mens nostra regi regum Benedicat domino.

To the jewel of the King above
Who contains all things,
We happily celebrate your feast, James.
From the Galilean shore you scorned worldly things. Following Christ, you foretold his kingdom.
Without understanding Him, 
You sought to be near Christ,
But now you sit in the cohort of twelve on high.
You were the twelfth Protomartyr in your land.
But you hold in glory the first seat of the twelve.
Lift us, therefore, to the eternal heavens,
That our minds may bless the King of Kings,  The Lord.

Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924)
Poem by Mary E. Coleridge (1861-1907)

You have probably heard the SATB version of this piece by Charles Villiers Stanford, a beloved standard of 20th-century English choral repertoire, but you may not have heard the SSSAA arrangement by the composer which sounds almost jazzy in comparison to the original through its close range of harmonies. It is set to the text of L'Oiseau Bleu, a poem by British poet Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, and depicts a bluebird in flight over a lake, represented in this performance by our own Mary Elizabeth!

The lake lay blue below the hill.
O’er it, as I looked, there flew
Across the waters, cold and still,
A bird whose wings were palest blue.

The sky above was blue at last,
The sky beneath me blue in blue.
A moment, ere the bird had passed,
It caught his image as he flew.

Music by Peter Stopschinski
Text by Danila Stoianova (1944-1989) and Peter Stopschinski

“I heard VAMP for the first time in the Draylen Mason Studio during the KMFA Unofficial SXSW 2023 concert and was so moved by their sound and artistry that I went home that night and wrote this piece for them. I often stay up very late into the night and on this night snippets of melody kept cycling through my head until I was compelled to form them into a piece of music.  The lyrics are a sort of mashup of unconnected verses.  I had been reading the poetry of Bulgarian poet Danila Stoianova and rather than set any particular poem of hers, I scanned through the collection and chose individual lines.  I even added some lines of my own. The next day I sent VAMP “The Smell of Rain,” completely unsolicited, and I am so grateful to them for their generosity with their time in giving this music a performance.” --Peter Stopschinski

When I have fallen, fallen to sleep,
I feel the grass grow on my feet.
Sunny roses on my toes
And air that’s crystal and cold.
It’s so good to let my mind glow bright
In solitude and light.

When I have fallen, fallen to sleep,
And my mind is cool, clean, and neat,
My tears fall icy on the night,
Passionless, pale, orange, white.
The moon divides herself in two,
And all the sad and crude
sinful hymns weep in the cold,
But the rain smells fresh and new.

Music by Russell Podgorsek
Poem by Sara Teasdale

We were lucky enough to get to work with composer Russell Podgorsek on his large-scale work Invisible Women which we premiered in 2024; it was just recently named a Finalist for the American Prize in Composition! We’ve witnessed his growth and he has witnessed ours. He wrote Teasdale Epigraph as a gift to mark the occasion or our debut album release. It is simple, elegant, and we are grateful for Russell’s art and friendship.

In the silver light after a storm,
Under dripping boughs of bright new green,
I take the low path to hear the meadowlarks
Alone and high-hearted as if I were a queen.

What have I to fear in life or death
Who have known three things:
the kiss in the night,
The white flying joy when a song is born,
And meadowlarks whistling in silver light.

Music by Ola Gjeilo
Texas from Song of Solomon

“Looking out from an attic window one Christmas in Oslo, over a wintery lake under the stars, I was thinking about how this ‘terrible’ beauty is so profoundly reflected in the northern lights, or aurora borealis, which, having grown up in the southern part of Norway, I have only seen once or twice in my life. It is one of the most beautiful natural phenomena I’ve ever witnessed, and has such a powerful, electric quality that must have been both mesmerizing and terrifying to people in the past, when no one knew what it was and when much superstition was attached to these experiences.”—Ola Gjeilo

Pulchra es amica mea,
suavis et decora sicut Jerusalem,
terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata.
Averte oculos tuos a me
quia ipsi me avolare fecerunt.

Thou art beautiful, O my love,
sweet and comely as Jerusalem,
terrible as an army set in array.
Turn away thy eyes from me,
for they have made me flee away.

Music and Lyrics by the Secret Sisters

Suddenly, you came out of me
And though I tried to be, I wasn't ready
And now I am afraid of the paths l've laid
Oh, and all the ways this world ain't steady

I barely recognize my face
I feel I might've lost my place

But I still love to sing a sad song, so I do
In the early morning hours when I'm holding you
And the rock and roll ain't quite as loud
'Cause the name I worked so hard to make is "Mama" now

I used to want the things that money brings
Shiny trophies to award my mind
You've turned it all to gold, with your little hand to hold
And all the clouds are silver lined

Can I find a way to blend
The muse and mother hen?

I still love to sing a sad song, so I do
In the early morning hours when l'm holding you
And the rock and roll ain't quite as loud
'Cause the name I worked so hard to make is "Mama" now

I still rock and sway, I still dance and play
I still love the way the music moans
But do I miss the stage and being far away
Enough to leave my heart at home?

Will the magic still be there?
And if it isn't, will I care?

'Cause when I wanna sing a sad song then I do
In the early morning hours when I'm holding you
And the rock and roll ain't quite as loud
'Cause the name I worked so hard to make is "Mama" now

Yes, the name that means the most to me is "Mama" now