New Recordings

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, I have just posted two new score videos with brand new recordings. These are two settings of the poem INVITATION TO LOVE by American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, one for unaccompanied mixed choir (SATB) and one for unison chorus or solo voice with piano accompaniment. The recordings were made by Matthew Curtis and Sarah Brailey of Choral Tracks, and they sound great! I hope you will enjoy them.

INVITATION TO LOVE for mixed choir:

INVTATION TO LOVE for solo voice or unison chorus with piano:

Sheet music for both versions is available from J. W. Pepper:
https://www.jwpepper.com/Invitation-to-Love/11337129.item

For more information, visit www.gregbartholomew.com/invitationindex.html

Greg Bartholomew

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JANUARY 2021, NEW YORK, NEW YORK

JUDITH CLURMAN, conductor and music director of the preeminent NYC chorus ESSENTIAL VOICES USA and record label Acis announce the release of AMERICA AT HEART via streaming platforms. The chorus is joined by Tony Award® winners RANDY GRAFF and BRIAN STOKES MITCHELL for a release in honor of the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States, on January 20, 2021.

TRACK 1:“REASON TO BE THANKFUL” Larry Hochman/Sheldon Harnick (David Frost, producer) Tony Award®-winner BRIAN STOKES MITCHELL joins the chorus for this inspiring work, released for the first time.
TRACK 2: “GIVE ME YOUR TIRED, YOUR POOR” Irving Berlin (Silas Brown, producer)
Tony Award®-winner RANDY GRAFF narrates the Emma Lazarus poem in David Chase’s arrangement of the Irving Berlin song with pianist Lee Musiker and cellist Raman Ramakrishnan joining the chorus for this track. Remastered in honor of the occasion.
TRACK 3: “AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL” with Stephen Flaherty/Lynn Ahrens’s “WHEELS OF A
DREAM” (David Frost, producer) BRIAN STOKES MITCHELL and ESSENTIAL VOICES USA are joined by instrumentalists Tedd Firth, piano; Kathryn Anderson, violin; Angela Pickett, viola; Michael Dahlberg, cello; Steve Lyon, oboe; and Rheagan Noleen, french horn. Remastered in honor of the occasion.

Scores are available at Hal Leonard.

STREAM: https://essentialvoicesusa.hearnow.com

www.essentialvoicesusa.com | www.judithclurman.com | www.randygraff.com | www.brianstokes.com | www.acisproductions.com

The first performance of Paul Ayres’s “Anti-Suffragist Reasons” is now on youtube:

It’s scored for unaccompanied SSA voices, and sets the sarcastic (and highly amusing!) words below:

***

I. Our Own Twelve Anti-Suffragist Reasons

1. Because no woman will leave her domestic duties to vote.
2. Because no woman who may vote will attend to her domestic duties.
3. Because it will make dissension between husband and wife.
4. Because every woman will vote as her husband tells her to.
5. Because bad women will corrupt politics.
6. Because bad politics will corrupt women.
7. Because women have no power of organization.
8. Because women will form a solid party and outvote men.
9. Because men and women are so different that they must stick to different duties.
10. Because men and women are so much alike that men, with one vote each, can represent their own views and ours too.
11. Because women cannot use force.
12. Because the militants did use force.

II. Why We Oppose Women Travelling In Railway Trains

1. Because travelling in trains is not a natural right.
2. Because our great-grandmothers never asked to travel in trains.
3. Because a woman’s place is the home, not the train.
4. Because it is unnecessary; there is no point reached by a train that cannot be reached on foot.
5. Because it will double the work of conductors, engineers and brakemen who are already overburdened.
6. Because men smoke and play cards in trains. Is there any reason to believe that women will behave better?

III. Why We Oppose Pockets For Women

1. Because pockets are not a natural right.
2. Because the great majority of women do not want pockets. If they did they would have them.
3. Because whenever women have had pockets they have not used them.
4. Because women are required to carry enough things as it is, without the additional burden of pockets.
5. Because it would make dissension between husband and wife as to whose pockets were to be filled.
6. Because it would destroy man’s chivalry toward woman, if he did not have to carry all her things in his pockets.
7. Because men are men, and women are women. We must not fly in the face of nature.
8. Because pockets have been used by men to carry tobacco, pipes, whiskey flasks, chewing gum and compromising letters. We see no reason to suppose that women would use them more wisely.

***

The words are by Alice Duer Miller (1874-1942). Her satirical verses appeared in The New York Tribune, subsequently collected and published as “Are Women People?” (1915) and “Women Are People!” (1917).

Just in time for the winter solstice, I have posted another choral score video. A COUNTRY BOY IN WINTER is my TTBB setting for unaccompanied men’s chorus of the poem by American poet Sarah Orne Jewett, with a recording by Matthew Curtis of Choral Tracks.

Sheet music for A COUNTRY BOY IN WINTER is available from J. W. Pepper:
https://www.jwpepper.com/10501312.item

For more information about TO A COUNTRY BOY IN WINTER, visit my website at
http://www.gregbartholomew.com/countryindex.html

For the complete playlist of all my score videos:

Happy holidays!

Greg Bartholomew

Leg Lamp Productions is proud to announce, despite of everything that 2020 could throw at, the release of a lovely new film from the City of Angels Master Chorale of Eric Whitacre’s “Glow”. Presented in 4K resolution, this new film merges the lush harmonies of Whitacre’s arrangement, and the expert conducting of Richard Medrano’s chorale, with breathtaking snowscapes and the intimate beauty of winter. A definite must see video to help you look forward to the holiday season and a new year.

As always, “Glow” is best viewed on a large screen and in a darkened room. The sound track is also recorded in Dolby 5.1 surround sound to provide a complete immersion of sight and sound for the viewer. Enjoy!

This past summer I watched the film “1917”, during which a British soldier sings the American gospel song “The Wayfaring Stranger” to his fellow soldiers before heading into a battle. Then a few nights later, I had a dream where I was singing the song in a choir, creating this rhythmic, hocketed and hummed accompaniment, reminiscent of African-American work songs, for a soloist who sang the words. I woke up and was intent on recreating this effect by completing a setting of this song for Solo Male Voice and TTBB Choir and finished within a few days.

But with no chance of a choir being able to sing it during the pandemic, I am so glad that my good friend David McHenry was willing and able to make this fantastic recording all by himself overdubbing himself singing all the parts:

The work is also available in a version for Solo Female Voice and SSAA Choir as well.

Scores can be purchased on my website: https://keanesouthard.instantencore.com/web/page.aspx?title=The+Wayfaring+Stranger