A Song of Joys

Saturday, October 17 at 7:30 pm
St. Edmund Church 
188 S. Oak Park Ave, Oak Park
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Sunday, October 18 at 4:00 pm
United Lutheran Church, Oak Park
409 Greenfield St, Oak Park
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Adults: $25; students 18 and under free.  

American poets Sara Teasdale and Walt Whitman have inspired composers in the United States and around the world. City Voices opens its season with choral works inspired by their poetry, including two cappella works — Christopher Tin’s All That Could Never Be Said and William Schuman’s Carols of Death — as well as Andrea Ramsey’s Orion and Ola Gjeilo’s Song of the Universal, which feature piano and string quartet accompaniment.

Childhood friendships, happy accidents, encounters with nature, journeys through memory: Teasdale and Whitman chart the expanse of human experience in their poetry. No wonder composers from around the world have been eager to set their words to song. “As I thought about some of my favorite choral pieces,” says City Voices director William Chin, “it struck me that they happened to use texts by these two poets.”

Ola Gjeilo’s setting of Whitman’s Song of the Universal matches the poet’s enormous, optimistic vision with lush, cinematic vocal harmonies accompanied by piano and string quartet. Ēriks Ešenvalds uses voices alone to reflect the delicacy of Teasdale’s Only in Sleep – about a dream encounter with childhood playmates – wrapping the soprano soloist in an eight-part choral texture. Teasdale’s work also inspires the heartfelt The Music of Stillness by Elaine Hagenberg and the joyously fun Lovely Chance by Jacob Narverud. And William Schuman’s three-movement Carols of Death tackles Whitman’s contrasting reflections on mortality: a tender desire to depart, the fear of the unknown, and the eventual acceptance of death’s universality.

The concert title comes from David C. Dickau’s setting of Whitman’s exuberant catalogue of things that bring him joy, including movement, work, travel, and the experience of being alive. “The poem is a wonderful description of life and its many delights, even in things mundane,” says Chin. “May we all remember that life is full of joys.”