Boston Conservatory Choir

AMY BEACH: The Sea-Fairies (1904)

Lucy Martindale, Claire Burreson, Naomi Bennett, Cait Winston, and Nicole DiPasquale, soloists

REENA ESMAIL: I Rise: Women in Song (2016)
I. The Beauty of Their Dreams
II. Phenomenal Woman
III. River Song
IV. Love Is Anterior to Life
V. Still I Rise

Demitra Ypsilantis and Sophia Ysrael, soloists

AMY BEACH: The Sea-Fairies (1904)
Amy Beach wrote the single-movement cantata The Sea-Fairies to poetry by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The text tells the story of mythological sirens who sing to ships passing their island to draw sailors to the land. While much of the traditional repertoire for treble choirs focuses on themes found in this story—female singers as mythical, alluring figures, with a focus on the male targets of their song—in our rehearsal process, the members of Choir chose to reimagine this well-worn (not to mention uninteresting and problematic) point of focus. Imagining Beach's sirens not as lovelorn enchantresses, but rather as independent and even sinister protagonists aiming to capture their targets for food, not affection, has opened new ways of interpreting the music as well as the text.

Beach wrote this piece for the Thursday Morning Musical Club, a women's chorus founded in Boston in 1902. At the first performance of the club, a writer for the Boston Post noted the large number and excellent quality of musical organizations in the city, saying that its "musical atmosphere is of exceptional interest to the large number of music lovers and students" that call Boston home. Nearly 120 years later, Boston is still just as much a hub for musical activity!

REENA ESMAIL: I Rise: Women in Song (2016)
(Program note by the composer)
The genre of women’s choral music is very special to me. The first piece of music I ever wrote, at age 13, was for the choir at the all-girls middle school I attended in Los Angeles, long before I knew it was even possible to be a professional composer. Each of the movements of I Rise: Women in Song is inspired by the words of a female author who has shaped our world with her thoughts and actions. Some of the movements are sweet, subtle, and nostalgic. Others are fiery and bold. Some coalesce into their shape as they move along and others unravel towards their ends. Each movement is a reflection on a single facet of the multifaceted experience of being a woman in this world.

BEACH: The Sea-Fairies
(Poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

Slow sail’d the weary mariners and saw,
Betwixt the green brink and the running foam,
Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms pres't
To little harps of gold; and while they mused,
Whispering to each other half in fear,
Shrill music reach’d them on the middle sea.

Whither away, whither away? fly no more.
Whither away, from the high green field, and the happy blossoming shore?
Day and night to the billow the fountain calls;
Down shower the gambolling waterfalls
From wandering over the lea;
Out of the live-green heart of the dells
They freshen the silvery-crimson shells,
And thick with white bells the clover-hill swells
High over the full-toned sea.
O, hither, come hither and furl your sails,
Come hither to me and to me;
Hither, come hither and frolic and play;
Here it is only the mew that wails;
We will sing to you all the day.
Mariner, mariner, furl your sails,
For here are the blissful downs and dales,
And merrily, merrily carol the gales,
And the spangle dances in bight and bay,
And the rainbow forms and flies on the land
Over the islands free;
And the rainbow lives in the curve of the sand;
Hither, come hither and see;
And the rainbow hangs on the poising wave,
And sweet is the color of cove and cave,
And sweet shall your welcome be.
O, hither, come hither, and be our lords,
For merry brides are we.
We will kiss sweet kisses, and speak sweet words;
O, listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten
With pleasure and love and jubilee.
O, listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten
When the sharp clear twang of the golden chords
Runs up the ridged sea.
Who can light on as happy a shore
All the world o’er, all the world o’er?
Whither away? listen and stay; mariner, mariner, fly no more.

ESMAIL: I Rise—Women in Song

I. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear.
(from The Beauty of Their Dreams by Eleanor Roosevelt)

II. I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

It's in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.

It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.

It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.

It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
The palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
(from "Phenomenal Woman" by Maya Angelou)

III. She heard the song by the river
And reached to capture every note
Holding her treasure close to her heart

Her muse heard her river song
And a crescendo filled
The head, the heart, the soul
Of everywoman

And they harmonized

They sang a song for the downtrodden
And the forgotten
Those cast off made whole again
Those ordinary made extraordinary
Through the magic of music

With her muse by her side, she flourished
Her voice, uplifted, heard by every woman
Her sisters joined her
Across the oceans and continents
Singing with one voice, one song
("River Song" by Arlene Geller)

IV. Love is anterior to life,
Posterior to death,
Initial of creation, and
The exponent of breath
("Love is anterior to Life" by Emily Dickinson)

V. You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise.
(from "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou)

Nathan Reiff, D.M.A., conductor, leads ensembles at Boston Conservatory and Harvard University, where he is also a founding member of Cambridge Common Voices, the city's first neurodiverse choir. Reiff is also a passionate advocate for the practice of hospice singing and directs the Boston-area hospice choir JourneySongs.

Naomi Bennett (M.M. '24, choral conducting), graduate assistant conductor, most recently served as director of choral music at Marshfield High School in Coos Bay, Oregon, and artistic director of the Corvallis Community Choir in Corvallis, Oregon. Bennett received her Bachelor of Arts in music education from Oregon State University in 2020.

Leona Cheung, piano, is a distinguished choral pianist known for her musical leadership and responsiveness while collaborating with singers and conductors. In addition to performing extensively at several international festivals, Cheung has accompanied ensembles such as the Grammy-nominated Seraphic Fire, the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Children's Chorus, Boston Choral Ensemble, and MIT Women's Chorale.

SOPRANO
Claire Burreson
Ciara Cuneo
Madeline Darigan
Nicole DiPasquale
Natalie Hansel
Kat Lutz
Lourdes Marie Ruiz
Csenge Szugyiczki
Allison Verani
Sophia Ysrael

ALTO
Montserrat Martinez Buganza
Chirbee Dy
Elycia King
Lucy Martindale
Isabella Napoli
Alex Roges
Aoife Schenz
Xingue Wanyan
Cait Winston
Demitra Ypsilantis

FLUTE
Abby Leary
Chaewon Kim

CLARINET
Yuzhe Wu
Rose Lao

HORN
Cameron McCarty
Brian Ross

HARP
Cherish McKellar

PIANO
Leona Cheung

VIOLIN
Yana Onufriychuk
Stephen Kim
Maria Hodson
Wei Liu

VIOLA
T-Yara Lesueur

CELLO
Lilya Arustamyan

BASS
Olive Haber

Senior Manager of Concert Services – Luis Herrera 
Concert Production Coordinator – Matthew Carey
Concert Production Manager – Kendall Floyd
Manager of Performance Technology – Wes Fowler
Performance Technology Technicians – Sara Pagiaro, Goran Daskalov