This Month's Featured Posts

Choral

A Small Suite

with piano | 6 min | Listen

Little Talk
Spiders
Snail’s Pace
Butterfly Wings

Since my first introduction to the prize-winning poetry of Aileen Fisher as a young mother, I have been a very vocal fan of her whimsical word crafting for children. While searching for fresh material to provide winsome lyrics for the younger kids of Seattle Children’s Chorus, I stumbled upon these four poems in “Always Wondering,” a collection of “Some Favorite Poems.” I quickly and joyfully got to work creating A Small Suite. Kris Mason, Artistic Director, conducted the premiere, and soon after, Alliance Music Publications, Inc. became its publisher, bringing the music and the poetry that I loved into many lives. Each piece stands alone, but they are designed as an integral seamless whole, musically and thematically.

“Little Talk”
Don’t you think it’s probable
that beetles, bugs, and bees
talk about a lot of things–
you know, such [things] as these:

The kind of weather where they live
in jungles tall with grass,
and earthquakes in their villages
whenever people pass.

Of course, we’ll never know if bugs
talk very much at all–
because our ears are far too big
for talk that is so small.
———-
“Spiders”
Spiders are so sort-of-thin,
whatever do they keep it in–
the yards of thread they need to spin?
———-
“Snail’s Pace”
Maybe it’s so
that snails are slow:
they trudge along and tarry.

But isn’t it true
you’d slow up, too,
if you had a house to carry?
———-
“Butterfly Wings”
How would it be
on a day in June
to open your eyes
in a dark cocoon,

And soften one end
and crawl outside,
and find you had wings
to open wide,

And find you could fly
to a bush or tree
or float on the air
like a boat at sea…

How would it BE?

by Aileen Fisher

Vocal Solo

Along With My Love I’ll Go

with flute and piano | 3 min | Listen

While collecting traditional Celtic tunes for an album of flute duets with piano, I described the experience as wandering into a candy store of endless delights– my task being to enrobe each select sweet center in creative chocolate! And when I discovered this winsome Irish melody, it became the title song of the CD Along With My Love I’ll Go . I added words to the melody for tenor Ross Hauck when he recorded the album Where We Long to Be . They reflect my long love of all things nautical, the romance of the sea. The accompanying video features Ross with flutist Maya Lewis.

Blow ye winds, westerlies, come hasten;
fill the sails, drive us through the sea…
to a land far away and olden,
to the place where we long to be.

Rolling waves may thunder ’round us,
fears relentless pound us,
yet we shall see, come the night,
countless stars in heaven
guiding on over the sea.

Choral

I Surrender All

with piano | 4 min | Listen

When references to the lyrics of this song became a recurrent theme in Dr. Scott Dudley’s sermon series at Bellevue Presbyterian, I composed this fervent gospel version for the congregation to sing with the choir. At times drums, trombones, and brass band have joined the piano accompaniment, as it has been rendered by the choir, ensembles, and soloists in many different contexts.

The inspiration for Judson Van DeVenter’s text was quite personal:
“For some time, I had struggled between developing my talents in the field of art and going into full-time evangelistic work. At last the pivotal hour of my life came, and I surrendered all. A new day was ushered into my life. I became an evangelist and discovered down deep in my soul a talent hitherto unknown to me. God had hidden a song in my heart, and touching a tender chord, he caused me to sing.” His colleague in ministry, Winfield S. Weeden, set his powerful poem to music, and it became the most enduringly popular of all the hymns they composed during their fruitful ministry together.

All to Jesus I surrender,
All to him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust him,
In his presence daily live.

Refrain:
I surrender all, I surrender all,
All to thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.

All to Jesus I surrender,
Humbly at his feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken,
Take me, Jesus, take me now.

All to Jesus I surrender,
Lord, I give myself to thee,
Fill me with thy love and power,
Let thy blessing fall on me!

Vocal Solo

I’d Rather Have Jesus

with piano | 4 min | Listen

When asked to develop music for an endowment dinner, this old song immediately came to mind. It represents the perfected priorities of a well-lived life (here arranged for mezzo-soprano Cynthia Dean).

Long before its composer, George Beverly Shea, became the world-famous baritone soloist for the evangelistic Billy Graham Crusade, he wrote “I’d Rather Have Jesus,” in response to his mother’s influence. She had left Rhea F. Miller’s 1922 poem on their piano, hoping that her son would read it, and he did. The words moved George, and spoke to him of his own aims and ambitions. He sat down at the piano and began singing the poem to a tune that seemed to fit the words, and the next day sang it in church. Though George had been offered a popular music career with NBC, a few years later he chose to become associated with Billy Graham and sang this song to millions of people around the world.

 

I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold;

I’d rather be His than have riches untold;

I’d rather have Jesus than houses or lands.

I’d rather be led by His nail pierced hand…

 

Than to be the king of a vast domain

or be held in sin’s dread sway.

I’d rather have Jesus than anything

this world affords today.

 

I’d rather have Jesus than men’s applause;

I’d rather be faithful to His dear cause;

I’d rather have Jesus than worldwide fame,

I’d rather be true to His holy name.

 

He is fairer than lilies of rarest bloom;

He is sweeter than honey from out the comb;

He is all that my hungering spirit needs.

I would rather have Jesus and let Him lead…

 

Than to be the king of a vast domain

or be held in sin’s dread sway.

I’d rather have Jesus than anything

this world affords today.

Choral

Home

SATB palindromic setting from John 14 with piano | 4 min | Listen

The text for “Home” directly quotes some of Jesus’ last words given to his disciples. One morning, as I was reading Chapter 14 of John’s Gospel, I was struck by the beautiful symmetry of Jesus’ message, and decided to set it to music in a way that would highlight its form, after that of a poetic palindrome (a framework proceeding and receding symmetrically from a mid-point). Marvelous, hopeful, intimate words of reassurance and union surround a simple, stark central teaching: “If you love me, keep my commandments.” The piece begins and ends with the concluding verse of David’s Psalm 23.

“… and I will dwell in the house of the Lord…”

Don’t be troubled,
Don’t be afraid,
Have faith in God,
Have faith in me.

I am making a home for you.
I, myself, will bring you there to be with me.

I am the way (home), I am the truth, I am your life.
~~~
If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
~~~
I am the way (home), I am the truth, I am your life.

I will ask the Father to send a Helper, to be in you, to show you truth.
We will come to you, and make our home in you forever.

You are not an orphan,
You are not alone,
You have my peace,
I am your home.

“… and I will dwell in the house of the Lord, forever…”

The ultimate message is that, through the agency of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, God’s desire is that his home be in us, as we are at home in him… union on earth and in heaven!