Haec Dies
William Byrd (ca. 1540-1623)
Text from Psalm 117:24
 
William Byrd is considered one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance period and of particular importance to the English Renaissance. Byrd famously lived and worked in the time of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) and her successor King James I (1566-1625), which was marked by religious and political tension in England. As a Catholic composing during a time of predominantly Protestant rule, Byrd wrote music in both traditions, including his Anglican Great Service and his Latin Mass settings for three, four, and five voices.
 
Haec Dies, from Byrd’s third collection of Cantiones Sacrae (1591) is a light and jubilant Latin motet based on Psalm 117:24, a text traditionally used during the Easter season. This piece features some hallmarks of the high Renaissance, particularly in Byrd’s switch to a dance-like triple meter during the middle “exultemus” section and in his use of imitative polyphony. At any given moment audiences can listen for a central melodic figure being passed from voice to voice, either duetting or in call and response. Listeners can hear this particularly on display in the final “Alleluia” section, wherein the main thematic figure is introduced sparingly at first, and then in quicker and quicker succession until the entire company arrives together for the final syllable.
 
Haec dies quam fecit Dominus;
Exultemus et laetemur in ea.
Alleluia.
 
This is the day which the Lord hath made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it.
 
 
Faire Is the Heaven
William Henry Harris
Poetry by Edmund Spenser, excerpted from An Hymn of Heavenly Beauty
 
Sir William H. Harris KCVO was an English composer particularly known for his contributions to Anglican church music and his teaching roles at the Royal College of Music. He also served as a music teacher to the UK’s Princess Margaret and the late Queen Elizabeth II in the 1930s, leading them in madrigals supplemented by other choristers. In the timeline of choral history, he is often grouped with the other early-twentieth century British Isles composers: Edward Edgar, Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Herbert Howells, Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, and Charles Villiers Stanford. One of Harris’ most famous works is this anthem for unaccompanied double choir, featuring verses by Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser (ca. 1552-1599). Spenser is best known for writing the epic poem “The Faerie Queen.”
 
Faire is the Heaven is a perfect example of Anglican antiphonal choral music. In the Anglican tradition, the two choirs – Decani and Cantoris – are positioned facing one another in opposing choir stalls, which allows them to take advantage of the acoustics of the church. This particular arrangement allows for a huge variety of texture and dynamics, which Harris used to great emotional effect. Sometimes one Cantoris acts as the echo of the Decani’s statements, and at other times each choir will appear to call out to the other. There are moments where either the lower or higher voices of both choirs will join forces, and rare others where the entire choir sings together, united. The duality of the two choirs is said to represent the dualities within Spenser’s words and Harris’ music: heaven and earth, angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim, ordinary and extraordinary.
 
Fair is the heaven where happy souls have place,
In full enjoyment of felicity,
Whence they do still behold the glorious face
Of the divine eternal Majesty;
[…]
 
Yet far more fair be those bright Cherubins,
Which all with golden wings are oversight,
And those eternal burning Seraphins,
Which from their faces dart out fiery light;
Yet fairer than they both, and much more bright,
Be th’ Angels and Archangels, which attend
On God’s own person, without rest or end.
 
These thus in fair each other far excelling,
As to the highest they approach more near,
Yet is that highest far beyond all telling,
Fairer than all the rest which there appear,
Though all their beauties join’d together were;
How then can mortal tongue hope to express
The image of such endless perfectness?
 
 
Plaudite, Psallite
Kęstutis Daugirdas
Text from collected Psalms
 
Kęstutis Daugirdas is a Lithuanian-American composer, conductor, and educator. Born and based in Chicago, he grew up singing in the Dainava Lithuanian Chorale. He earned both his bachelor’s and a film scoring diploma in the United States (at the University of Illinois and Berklee College of Music, respectively) and currently works and lives in Lithuania. Plaudite, Psallite won first prize at the Vox Juventutis composition contest in Vilnius, Lithuania in 2022.
 
Plaudite is a dynamic and intricate work that explores the vast textural possibilities of an eight-part choir. The composer was inspired by the same setting of the text by Renaissance composer Giovanni Gabrieli, who was known for his compositions for antiphonal double choir. The opening and closing “plaudite” fanfares feature a bold and celebratory texture, characterized by joyful exclamations alternating with excited whispers. The middle “benedicant” section contrasts these statements with a series of interlocking melodic and rhythmic figures, sometimes comprising five different patterns woven together. In fact, the entire choir never sings together in full homophony (singing the same words at the same time) until the last four measures of the piece, when they join together for one final “Alleluia.” In the composer’s words, he was “inspired by the exuberant character of this text and created a piece that is full of energy, vitality, and joy.”
 
Plaudite, psallite, Jubilate Deo omnis terra, Alleluia.
Benedicant Dominum omnes gentes collaudantes eum, Alleluia.
Quia fecit nobis cum Dominus miserocordiam suam, Alleluia.
Et captivam duxit captivitatem; Admirabilis et gloriosus in saecula, Alleluia.
 
Clap (your hands), sing praises, rejoice in God, all the earth – hallelujah.
Let all nations bless the Lord, joining in his praises – hallelujah.
For the Lord has had mercy on us – hallelujah.
And he has led captivity captive, wonderful and glorious for (all) ages – hallelujah.
 
 
Reincarnations, op. 16
Samuel Barber
Text by James Stephens
 
Samuel Barber is one of the most celebrated American composers of the 20th century. Barber’s style is marked by lyricism and expressivity. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he never experimented with many of the 20th-century atonal and post-tonal techniques of the day, but rather continued to explore the conventional models and tonal language of the previous century. He won two Pulitzer prizes in his lifetime, the first for his opera Vanessa in 1958 and the second for his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1962). Although he wrote in all vocal and instrumental forms, he is especially beloved for his singular writing for both solo voice and chorus, which comprises two thirds of his overall output. His best-known choral works include his setting of Sure on this shining night, the SATB setting of The Monk and his Cat from his song cycle Hermit Songs, Reincarnations, the large-scale Prayers of Kierkegaard, and the vocal adaptation of his Adagio for Strings entitled Agnus Dei.
 
Reincarnations has been designated an “American Masterpiece” of choral music by the National Endowment for the Arts. Although the music is American, the poetry is Irish: a set of three poems by Irish poet James Stephens from his 1918 collection of the same name, in which he took inspiration from Irish poets many years before him and wove new poetry around a borrowed phrase. The first movement, “Mary Hynes,” is a rollicking tune expressing the joys (she is the sky of the sun!) and mysteries (she is a rune!) of loving this particular woman. The choir spends the first half of the movement dancing and fussing over rapid text, and the second sighing sweetly over Mary’s impending return. The second movement, “Anthony O’Daly,” takes a sharp emotional turn into dirge. Most of the movement is sustained by a semi-canon on a chromatic, descending line that is evocative of pain and mourning. This canon is always underlined by a consistent intoning of the name “Anthony” by the basses until the sopranos and altos take their turn in order for the tenors and basses to speak their own grief.
 
The third movement, “The Coolin,” is the most-performed and best-loved of the set. The poetry outlines to lovers from the perspective of the one issuing the invitation: to come along, to drink, talk, look into one another’s eyes, hold hands, and finally: kiss. According to James Stephens, a “coolin” or “cooleen” refers to a little curl that grows on the back of a girl’s neck, and the word came to mean one’s sweetheart. Barber’s setting is incredibly intimate and tender but simultaneously playful. Amidst the legato, sustained phrases, he has also inserted lilting, dotted rhythms reminiscent of Irish traditional song, perhaps a nod to the text’s origin. The setting oscillates between hushed, secretive moments and bolder moments of passion. There are many varying interpretations of this deceptively difficult piece, particularly in the turning moment when the choir unites to ask: “What if the night be black, and the air on the mountain chill, where the goat lies down in her track and all but the fern is still!” Some see this as the last effort of the seducer to convince the object of their desire to come along, while others find it to be a sweeter plea, or even a brief moment of insecurity. This subjectivity of the poet’s verse as well as the composer’s setting makes it all the more engaging for both choir and audience, and whets the appetite of every conductor who would seek their own meaning.
 
1. Mary Hynes
 
She is the sky of the sun!
She is the dart
Of love,
She is the love of my heart,
She is a rune,
She is above
The women of the race of Eve
As the sun is above the moon.
 
Lovely and airy the view from the hill
That looks down from Ballylea;
But no good sight is good until
By great good luck you see
The Blossom of the Branches walking towards you
Airily.
 
2. Anthony O’ Daly
 
Since your limbs were laid out
The stars do not shine,
The fish leap not out
In the waves.
On our meadows the dew
Does not fall in the morn,
For O’Daly is dead:
Not a flow’r can be born,
Not a word can be said,
Not a tree have a leaf;
Anthony, after you
There is nothing to do,
There is nothing but grief.
 
3. The Coolin
 
Come with me, under my coat,
And we will drink our fill
Of the milk of the white goat,
Or wine if it be thy will;
And we will talk until
Talk is a trouble, too,
Out on the side of the hill;
And nothing is left to do,
But an eye to look into an eye
And a hand in a hand to slip,
And a sigh to answer a sigh;
And a lip to find out a lip:
What if the night be black
And the air on the mountain chill,
Where the goat lies down in her track
And all but the fern is still!
Stay with me, under my coat,
And we will drink our fill
Of the milk of the white goat
Out on the side of the hill!
 
 
Pure Imagination
Leslie Bricusse (1931-2021) & Anthony Newley (1931-1999)
arr. Matthew D. Nielsen (b. 1984)
 
Audiences will instantly recognize this piece written for the 1971 classic film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, sung by sparkly-eyed Gene Wilder. Songwriting partners Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley are also responsible for such hits as “Feeling Good” (most famously recorded by Nina Simone) and “What Kind of Fool Am I?” as sung by Sammy Davis Jr. Matthew D. Nielsen is a California-based composer, conductor, baritone, author, and producer who currently sings with the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Dr. Nielsen earned his DMA in Choral Music from the Thornton School of Music in 2017.
 
Pure Imagination has become an iconic entry of the Great American Songbook that has inspired thousands of performances, recordings, and arrangements over the last fifty-four years. The piece is characterized by large melodic leaps, particularly those that flirt with a neat octave jump but just under or overshoot by one half step. This is first heard in the iconic piano ostinato that begins the piece, which leaps down a minor ninth (an octave plus one more half step) and then steps up to the lower octave. This melodic trend is then continued in the soaring opening vocal line which includes leaps of a perfect fifth, a minor seventh, and a major seventh all within the first nine notes. The challenge of the singer is to deliver this immensely difficult line as though it’s no trouble at all, with the addition of living up to Wilder’s iconic original performance of the song, distinguished by a wonderful depth of character. Nielsen’s arrangement is a beautiful balance of honoring the original version and exploring the opportunity for new textures, jazz harmonies, and a shimmering piano line.
 
Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination
Take a look and you’ll see into your imagination
We’ll begin with a spin traveling in a world of my creation
What we’ll see will defy explanation.
 
If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want to change the world? There’s nothing to it
 
There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination
Living there you’ll be free, if you truly wish to be
 
 
A Quiet Place
Ralph Carmichael
arr. Take 6
 
Performed as found on the 1988 Take 6 self titled album Take 6. This month, the USC Thornton Chamber Singers were fortunate enough to receive a visit from founding and current Take 6 member Claude McKnight. Mr. McKnight coached the singers through his personal interpretation of the piece as well as how to build and execute their own.
 
There is a quiet place
Far from the rapid pace
Where God can soothe my troubled mind
 
Sheltered by tree and flow´r
There in my quiet hour
With Him, my cares are left behind
 
Whether a garden small
Or on a mountain tall
 
New strength and courage, there, I find
Then from this quiet place
I go prepared to face
A new day with love for all mankind.
 
 
There Will Be Rest
Frank Ticheli
Text by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) from her poem “There Will Be Rest”
 
In the composer’s own words, written for the 2023 concert celebrating his retirement from USC, where he served as professor composition for 32 years:
 
There Will Be Rest was commissioned by The Pacific Chorale; it is dedicated to the memory of Cole Carsan St.Clair, the son of my dear friends, Carl and Susan St.Clair. The music embodies my long-standing love for the poetry of Sara Teasdale. “There Will Be Rest,” one of her last poems, is a perfect summary of her lifelong reverence for the stars and their eternal promise of peace. I have striven to capture the poem’s purity of spirit in this delicately lyrical choral setting.
 
There will be rest, and sure stars shining
Over the roof-tops crowned with snow,
A reign of rest, serene forgetting,
The music of stillness holy and low.
 
I will make this world of my devising
Out of a dream in my lonely mind.
I shall find the crystal of peace, – above me
Stars I shall find.
 
 
In Perfect Light
Juhi Bansal
Text by Sarah Williams, from The Old Astronomer to his Pupil
 
Juhi Bansal is a composer, conductor, teacher, and alumna of the Thornton School of Music, currently living in and working in Los Angeles. Originally from India and Hong Kong, her music draws upon elements as disparate as Hindustani music, the spectralists, progressive metal, musical theater, and choral traditions to create deeply expressive, evocative sound-worlds. Spanning every genre of acoustic concert music to multimedia to film, her music is always driven by storytelling, with a particular focus on stories of strong women, wilderness, and celebrating cultural and ideological diversity.
 
In Perfect Light uses excerpted text from nineteenth-century English poet Sarah Williams’ poem “The Old Astronomer to his Pupil.” This particular couplet is so beloved that several professional and amateur astronomers have used it as their epitaphs. Bansal describes her own composition as “a tranquil reflection on finding solace in death through images of stars in the night sky.” This subtle and thoughtful piece repeats the same text several times, each repetition maintaining the same melodic arc but finding new emotional perspectives through slight harmonic variations. The aged wisdom of the speaker is expressed in Bansal’s long phrases and confident pauses, and listeners can hear the mystery of the unknown in her creative harmonic setting of the word “night.”
 
Program notes sourced in part from the composer’s website juhibansal.com
 
Though my soul will set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light.
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
 
 
To Propagate a Home
Ayanna Woods (b. 1992)
 
Ayanna Woods is a Grammy-winning performer, composer and bandleader from Chicago. In her words, her music “explores the spaces between acoustic and electronic, traditional and esoteric, wildly improvisational and mathematically rigorous.” As a choral composer, she has been commissioned by Chanticleer, Lorelei Ensemble, Chicago Chamber Choir, and The Crossing, with whom she won her Grammy for her composition Shift on their 2024 album Ochre. “To Propagate a Home” was commissioned in 2019 by the World House Choir of Yellow Springs, Ohio, whose mission is to “perform music that motivates and inspires our communities toward justice, diversity, inclusion, and equality as we strive for peace and create our web of mutuality.”
 
Woods, who wrote the lyrics as well as the music, describes this piece as “an ode to the faith, vision, and hard work it takes to build new roots with your own two hands,” and expresses that the piece was inspired by the resilience of the people of West Dayton, OH. “Propagate” weaves between major and minor themes throughout, alternately expressing both hope and heartache. The mid-point of this composition features a dramatic build wherein the choir repeatedly sings the phrase, “When they cut off a branch they say is dying / It takes uncommon faith to grow.” With each repetition the chorus grows stronger, emboldened by their own words, until the texture opens and the piece ends in celebration.
 
We must have uncommon strength to face the wound
And refuse to let it wither.
 
We must have uncommon faith to plunge our hands into the land
And nurture an abandoned place.
 
They say it’s a lost cause –
They haven’t seen the new roots
Weaving through the dark.
 
They say it isn’t worth it –
They haven’t watched with joy
As each new bud emerges.
 
When they cut off a branch they say is dying,
It takes uncommon faith to grow.
 
These roots have never forgotten
How to grab hold of the soil.
 
This branch has never forgotten how
To reach up toward the sky.

FLORA L. THORNTON ADMINISTRATION
 
Jason King, Dean
Susan M. Lopez, Associate Dean for Administration & Finance
Jeffrey de Caen, Associate Dean for Operations
Joanna Demers, Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs
Brian Head, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs
Phillip Placenti, Associate Dean for Admission & Student Affairs
Ronald C. McCurdy, Associate Dean for Culture, Community, & Impact
Rotem Gilbert, Vice Dean, Division of Research & Scholarly Studies
William Kanengiser, Interim Vice Dean, Division of Classical Performance & Composition
Sean Holt, Vice Dean, Division of Contemporary Music
Job Springer, Doctoral Advisor, Thornton Student Affairs
Viet Bui, Director of Student Affairs
Heather Pio Roda, Head of Production & Events
Tori Nagle, Senior Production Coordinator
Woody Gatewood, Choral & Sacred Music Administrative Coordinator
 
DEPARTMENT OF CHORAL & SACRED MUSIC FACULTY
 
Tram Sparks, Chair & Professor of Practice
Cristian Grases, Professor
Emily Sung, Assistant Professor of Practice
Jennifer Kampani, Adjunct Instructor in Early Music
Troy Quinn, Part-Time Lecturer in Conducting
 
DEPARTMENT OF CHORAL & SACRED MUSIC DONORS
 
We are grateful to the following individuals who have made contributions to the USC Thornton Department of Choral & Sacred Music since July 1, 2018.
 
Anonymous, Charles Albers, Victor Apanovitch, Elizabeth Armour & Jonathan Lewis, Kristin & Larry Ball, Andrea Barrocak, Jane & Robin Blomquist, John Michael Boyle, Jennifer & Donald Brinegar, Ellen Brock and Lawrence Kaptein, Robert E. Brooks, Kellie & Aaron Custino, Dr. Harold A. Daugherty Jr., Sean Daughtery, Elizabeth Molly Flier, Joanne & Nathaniel Fryml, Ada Gates, Carol & Ilan Glasman, Lisa Hane & Hugh Rienhoff, Lisa H. Harrington, Kathleen Hartley, Tamara & Mark Hatwan, Dr. Carl W. Haywood, Dr. Stephanie Henry, Margaret P. & Guilbert C. Hentschke, Barbara A. & Wayne Hirabayashi, Nancy & James Holland, Alvin Hughes, Debora Lee Huffman, Dr. Buddy Oscar James, Young Lee-Ko & Seungseop Ko, Dr. Yewon Lee & Daniel Lee, L’Etoile Apparel, Dr. Iris Sue Levine & Lesili Beard, Hazel & James Lord, Dr. Marguerite Marsh, Joan Mattei, Dr. Stanley R. McDaniel, Patricia & John McIntyre, Dr. Donald B. & Mary C. Miller, ​​Ann F. Mohrbacher, Shirley & John G. Morgan, Kimberley & Douglas Nason, Mr. David Noble, Christine Marie Ofiesh, Peter & Masha Plotkin Memorial Foundation, Anthony H. Pasqua, Thomas B. Ringland, Kenneth D. Sanson Jr. Estate, Rose F. Sapia, Margaret & Christopher Saranec, Virginia Sato & Raymond Bates, Mary & Jo-Michael Scheibe, Nicole D. Singer, Virginia & Thomas Somerville, Christian D. Stendel, Toni & Nick Strimple, The Donald & Alice Noble Foundation, Town & Gown of USC, Carla Tardio and Patrick O’Grady, Raymond Thompson, Leslie J. & Jeffrey B. Unger, Barbara & James Harold Vail, Emily Kuo Vong, Ken White & Allison White, Gregory Wait, John P. Wiscombe, Pamela & Donald (“Jeff”) Wright, Janice Lynn Wyma, Zena & Steve Yamamoto, Xu & Young Foundation
 
Please contact the USC Thornton Office of Advancement at music.advancement@usc.edu or (213) 740-6474 if you would like more information on how to contribute to the USC Thornton Department of Choral & Sacred Music.