story songs
SATB a cappella | Graphite | 3.5' | Text: Brandon Elliott
Brandon Elliott's text for Perhaps beautifully captures what musicians try to express in our compositions and performances. "Perhaps we may live an answer or illuminate a story," Elliott writes. "Perhaps we may not..."
SATB & Piano | G. Schirmer Dale Warland Choral Series | 6' | Text: Anonymous
I am Music sets an anonymous text, a riddle full of rich imagery, where music speaks in the first person. The text begins, "I tell the story of love..." and goes on to describe the many moods and emotions that music can evoke.
SATB a cappella with treble soloist | G. Schirmer | 5.5' | Text: Diane Thiel
Diane Thiel's text for Lodestar, from her poem Nursery Shellgame, describes life in the language of fairy tales and children's stories: "a trail of crumbs," "a handful of blue marbles," "how you wonder what you are."
History's Stories
SSAA, SATB, and/or TTBB a cappella | 6' | Graphite | Text: Diane Thiel
History's Stories is a musical puzzle: the first piece (Echo's History's for TTBB chorus) and the second piece (Echo's Stories for SSAA) combine to make up a third SSAATTBB work (History's Stories), which layers the two previous pieces together without changing any notes.
Contemporary poet Diane Thiel's text for History's Stories describes the myth of Echo and Narcissus: "For her song and flight, Echo is torn apart, art / flung limb by singing limb. [...] Our voices rise and leave, traveling, raveling, veiling / currents across the sea, longing to reach each / Atlantis, locate shapes that sounds recall – call / back the world, as it was first encountered, heard."
