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Company Profile
(Arrangers noted in parentheses)
Oh, Shenandoah (Alf Houkom)
He's Goin' Away (Gail Kubik)
Skip to my Lou (Edwin Fissinger)
Steal Away (Carol Barnett)
Wayfarin' Stranger (Gilbert M. Martin)
Soldier, Soldier Won't You Marry Me? (Robert De Cormier)
Pretty Saro (Mark Keller)
Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier (Robert De Cormier)
Black is the Color (Norman Luboff)
Red River Valley (Carol Barnett)
Nelly Bly (Roger Wagner)
My Lord, What a Mornin' (Harry T. Burleigh)
Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair (Gail Kubik)
Hard Times Come Again No More (Mark Keller)
Single Girl (Stephen Paulus)
Deep River (Carol Barnett)
Buffalo Gals (Alice Parker)
The Water is Wide (Stephen Paulus)
Black Sheep (John Rutter)
ACC 122: Blue Wheat, A Harvest of American Folk Songs
The Dale Warland Singers
Dale Warland, conductor
Total Time: 61:33
(available on compact disc and cassette) Price: $16.95 CD; $11.95 cassette
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These 19 folk songs are extraordinary for a number of reasons: the arrangers knew what they were doing, the chorus sings with a technical brilliance, the conductor has a knack for making the music come alive, and for the patriotic-minded, the music is quintessential American.Oh, Shenandoah is the first folk song on the recording, and one would have thought the tune had been arranged and recorded enough already. But Alf Houkom had something to say. His arrangement may not even be the last word, but it is certainly the finest arrangement conceived to-date.
We won't try to explain why Oh, Shenandoah will take your breath away. That's something only your CD player can do.
Instead, meet Alf Houkom, a 60-year-old gentleman who has taken the composer's pen in hand with a freshness of spirit and purpose. He has been composing since his student days, but only of late has he felt comfortable with the human voice and started writing for professional and amateur choruses.
He is also the composer of Rune of Hospitality (recorded by the Dale Warland Singers on the December Stillness CD), a Gaelic poem set to music that evokes a deeply spiritual response. Houkom cannot pinpoint where his inspiration came from, but he believes that ''we are all vessels through which ideas come forth.''
Premiered in 1985 by the Cornell College Choir, Rune of Hospitality was re-discovered by Dale Warland nine years later when he programmed it for the Dale Warland Singers' annual Echoes of Christmas concert aired on NPR. It then came into its own spotlight as public radio stations ''adopted'' it for the holiday season.
Warland promises to bring more of Houkom's works back, but for now, we have a heartfelt arrangement of Oh, Shenandoah.
Howells: Long, long ago
Exceptionally well-written for voices, with compelling harmonic progressions and dynamic contrasts. Howells was a master craftsman: the structure of this motet has a strong sense of ''completeness'' to it.
Penderecki: Izhe xeruvimy (Song of Cherubim)
Stunning eastern European and Orthodox effects. High drama and glorious long phrases create a deeply spiritual message.
Houkom: The Rune of Hospitality
A mystical text set with close harmonies and delicately colorful guitar accompaniment.
Kverno: Corpus Christi Carol
A haunting marriage of primitive and modern music. Beautiful key and texture changes for soloist and solo quartet.
Pårt: Magnificat
The most important setting of the Ave Maria text within the last decade. With disguised simplicity and minimal musical materials, Pårt crafts a masterwork.
Rachmaninoff: Khvalitye imya Gospodnye (Praise the Name of the Lord)
Heart-on-sleeve emotion and bold Romantic harmonies create a riveting musical experience.
Hess: The Oxen
A sweeping harp accompaniment for Thomas Hardy's text makes a unique counterpart to the vocal writing. Very moody, very enticing.
Stravinsky: Ave Maria
Contemplative melody and quiet harmonies. Stravinsky's Russian heritage shines through this simple setting.
Busto: Ave Maria
Emotional, melodic. . . and great general appeal in a modern Romantic setting from Spain.
Poulenc: Quem vidistis pastores dicite
A rhythmic and vocal challenge set with primitive harmonies.
Paulus: Evensong
A wide range of textures from unison to unusually fresh and lush harmonies. Magnificent resolutions at the cadences. An alternately complex and deceptively simply setting.
Heitzeg: little tree
Tender and appealing, this score is enhanced by a touching harp accompaniment, and graced with a magnificently quiet and beautiful ending.
ACC 121: December Stillness
The Dale Warland Singers
Dale Warland, conductor
Total Time: 54:38
(available on compact disc only) Price: $16.95 CD
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Frank Martin: Mass
Samuel Barber: Agnus Dei (''Adagio for Strings'')
Gregorio Allegri: Miserere mei, Deus
Herbert Howells: Requiem
ACC 120: Cathedral Classics
The Dale Warland Singers
Dale Warland, conductor
Total Time: 64:36
(available on compact disc and cassette) Price: $16.95 CD; $11.95 cassette
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Benjamin Britten: Rejoice in the Lamb
Nancy Wertsch: Antiphon for God the Father
Stephen Paulus: Pilgrims' Hymn
Aharon Harlap: Bat Yiftach (Jephthah's Daughter) (Fragments from the Mass)
Leonard Bernstein: Chichester Psalms
ACC123: Bernstein & Britten
The Dale Warland Singers
Dale Warland, conductor
Larry C. Bach, assistant conductor
Total Time: 66:33
(available on compact disc only) Price: $16.95 CD
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A few days after the Cleveland Orchestra premiere of his concerto for string quartet and orchestra and just days before another premiere of a work for violin and orchestra at the Atlanta Symphony, Stephen Paulus wrote and narrated a special program for young people. Before a live audience, and with 90 musicians behind him, he explained how composers write music for chorus.The teaching points, highlighted below, and the music were captured on videotape by five cameras and a professional recording team, giving this program a mark of the highest technical quality, suitable for broadcast and especially designed for classroom use.
Mr. Paulus connects the art of composing to the art of performing. Students of all ages learn how a choral work evolves from the very first sketches to the final excitement of performance. Young peoples' burgeoning interest in composing, evident from the movie Amadeus and the new dramatic series on Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, stems from wanting to know how the music is created.
Throughout the program, Mr. Paulus uses musical excerpts to explain and illustrate, and to keep students focused on the excitement of music and its performance. The opportunity to hear the Dale Warland Singers, the Northfield Youth Choir and members of the orchestras of Minneapolis and St. Paul makes this program a joy to watch and gives it an excitement all its own.
Last fall, after the premiere of Paulus' work for Orchestra and String Quartet, the headline in the Cleveland Plain Dealer read ''Performance soars up to the heavens.''
This is what all singers want, and so we study, practice and perform. Take your chorus another step further and teach them:
EDUC 111: Stephen Paulus: On Composing for Chorus
- how the music is written to fit the text
- the creative choices a composer makes in melody, harmony & development
- how the composer draws out the emotion from poetry and music
- rhythm and how it is more than the time signature
- why the composer's expression markings are critical to interpreting a score
- word painting, making the music sound like what the words are saying
- how new music (as good as Bach ever wrote) is being written in our time
- why certain poems are selected and how the poetry motivates writing of the music
- and more about the role of performer, from the composer's perspective
Stephen Paulus, Narrator with Various Artists
Total Time: 45 mins.
(VHS)
Price: $89.95 (for classroom use)
$39.95 (for home or non-public performance use)
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Hear from the Dale Warland Singers while you learn about the ''details'' which have made them so highly respected. Conductor Dale Warland covers the questions and techniques that are important for the choral conductor and adult singer. The Dale Warland Singers demonstrate each teaching point by singing brief excerpts of music by several composers, including Mozart, Stenhammer, R. Thompson, Copland, Rorem & Chatman. Incorporate just one ''detail'' in your next rehearsal and performance, and the audience will know. Demonstrate these details to your singers, and the benefits multiply.You will learn about:
Because the choral excerpts illustrate and clarify the topics presented, we recommend that the videotape be played back on a VCR equipped with VHS Hi-Fi® , preferably through the speakers in your sound system, or through good quality stereo headphones. At a minimum, your VCR should be equipped to reproduce stereo audio tracks.
- phrasing techniques incorporating the voice with the text and the music
- strategies for producing different choral tones from your chorus
- how even the smallest gesture from the conductor can affect your choral sound
- how the basic sound can be improved by a simple repositioning
- the ins and outs of pronunciation and enunciation and why their unification is absolutely necessary
- four different ways to incorporate a breath or a break to enhance and unify a phrase
- why balance is more than just reading the dynamic markings
- the importance of articulation and sustained singing
- why dynamics must be more than pianissimo or fortissimo
- when and how you should edit the composer's score to facilitate correct choral balance
- and much more!
Narrator Dale Warland is founder and director of the Dale Warland Singers and the Warland Symphonic Chorus which regularly performs with the Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards. The 40 members of the Dale Warland Singers are professionals, engaged year-round. The chorus is currently celebrating its 25th year.
EDUC 110: Attention to Detail; A Choral Conductor's Guide
Dale Warland & The Dale Warland Singers
Total Time: 50 mins.
(VHS)
Price: $89.95 (for public performance use)
$49.95 (for home or non-public performance use)
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One of the loveliest choral discs to emerge in a long time, . . . the seamless blend and rich sound of what is probably America's best chorus. . .
The songs performed by the 40-voice Dale Warland Singers -- one of the finest choruses in the world not conducted by Robert Shaw -- can be enjoyed simply for their unforgettable melodies.
Brilliant arrangements. . . and truly breathtaking recorded sound.
This recording. . . is an example of outstanding American choral singing and appealing, intelligent disc programming. . . If you're looking for a sound to emulate, new repertoire to program, or just a satisfying hour of listening, you'll find it all here.
. . . some of the loveliest choral singing I've heard in a long time.
The chance to hear choral music sung this well is truly a rarity. And, one of the purposes of the DWS is to present as much new music as it can, to the constant delight and surprise of its fans. December Stillness shows why the chorale has acquired this dedicated following. The exquisite detailing in Howells' Long, long ago, for instance, can make an audience catch its breath. And the balances so crucial in Pårt's Magnificat seem almost inherent to these impressive choristers.Most of the literature on these 12 tracks will be new to the record buyer. All the more reason to experience them this way the first time around. From Penderecki's Ixhe xeruvimy to Paulus' Evensong and Heitzeg's little tree, there is a caliber of singing that has few peers. One can have nothing but praise for the chorus and certainly for its director, intrepid as he is in seeking out the absolute best of what has been or is being written in our time.
Looking for some truly unusual Christmas music? Here are 12 rarely -- if ever -- recorded selections; all modern or contemporary, much dating from 1987-93!. . . The most adventurous work in the collection is Evensong by Stephen Paulus (1990). An English translation of a 19th-century poem of Matthias Claudius is expressive with its close harmonies made daring with many second intervals in motion.
The Dale Warland Singers rise gloriously to all musical difficulties and have a big sound.
The 12 choral works here are mostly, but not exclusively, Christmas pieces. Likely to become some of your seasonal favorites, almost all are a cappella, but a few have a guitar or a harp accompanying the most gorgeous of choruses. . . if you are looking for a nice four-part setting of Silent Night, this one isn't for you -- but it's for everyone else.
The disc is introspective, contemplative listening that does not sacrifice intelligence or depth.
. . . Dale Warland founded his mellifluous ensemble back in the Seventies, and it has been giving pleasure ever since. . . just a few of the things that make this disc so outstanding are its well-judged repertoire, its fine sense of extended upper line (too legato for some?), its beautiful, immaculate, pure tone and sheer sensitivity to word, phrase, tuning, and balance. In short, it simply refuses to put a foot wrong.Sample their neatly intoned triads, sustained drones and precise intervals in Penderecki's appealing, approachable 'Song of the Cherubim'; or the crystal-clear soprano leads, evocative trios or semi-choruses and ticking lower-voice ostinatos in Pårt, Poulenc, Howells and Stravinsky -- all set in a spectacularly clean, enhancing acoustic (as pure as the singing itself).
. . . It's splendid, melting stuff, beautifully managed, finely recorded and balanced, impeccably tuned and enchantingly sung.
(Five Stars for Performance, Five Stars for Sound, and an Outstanding Rating)
This disc is to the best-selling Chant as a full-course gourmet dinner is to a piece of Melba toast. The choral textures are unbelievably rich and lovely, yet Cathedral Classics also speaks to that contemplative and spiritual aspect that has sent so many disc buyers in search of Gregorian chant. . .[Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber] is sung with seamless continuity in a performance of mighty emotional impact. . .
As you listen to those voices climb and intertwine in the Barber, and negotiate the double-chorus intricacies of the Martin, and soar aloft in the Allegri, you may well come to the same conclusion that I did: I've never heard a better chorus.
The singing by this 40-voice professional chorus is gorgeous. Dissonances glow, melismas are cuddled with affection and great warmth, and there is a spirituality you can cut with a knife.
This disc will stop you in your tracks. . . Barber's Agnus Dei is the composer's choral transcription of his most famous work, the Adagio for Strings, familiar as the soundtrack to the movie "Platoon". But as searching and tragic as the string version is, voices hit home with more punch because of their humanness.The long build to the climax will raise your neck hairs: Eight minutes of wonder.
The singing by the Dale Warland Singers is peerless. The sopranos shoot straight to the heart of pitches without turning strident. The acoustics linger at the climaxes. This is a disc to treasure.
Gorgeous.
This is one of the very few truly American choirs whose excellent and distinctive sound just could encourage some imitators from across the Atlantic -- instead of the other way around.
. . . an unmatched musical experience. . . a performance of luminous beauty.
. . . a truly magnificent performance [of the Mass by Frank Martin].
- I've just been listening to your new CD -- Cathedral Classics -- it is beautiful! The Barber in particular struck me as a great accomplishment. I've heard it sung before and thought of it as not up to the string orchestra version -- as if the words were just tacked on to allow choirs to sing the piece -- but you really gave this version an integrity and life of its own -- you managed to make it into a choral piece. What a demanding piece to sing -- and how effective it can be.
-- Chicago, IL- The Barber Adagio is just plain arresting. Oh to be 25, have a good music education, and have an opportunity to sing that literature in your ensemble. The expected Warland blend and precision (which is still so true as to continue to be inspirational) is what choral music ought to be.
-- Grand Rapids, MI- I was literally quite stunned by the performance of Gregorio Allegri's Miserere. Realizing that I was not attending to my driving as I should, I found some open space and parked the car. The sun was shining through dissipating clouds and a light spring snow. It was one of those rare moments of complete communion for which we live in an otherwise incomprehensible world. Once again, I am indebted to you for an unexpected gift.
-- Salt Lake City, UT- I have a Master of Sacred Music Degree by Union Theological Seminary, was in church music a number of years, have sung in a professional choir, but I have never been more 'blown away' and smitten. Everything about it (Cathedral Classics) was superb.
-- Springfield, MO
He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards. The 40 members of the Dale Warland Singers are professionals, engaged year-round. Find his current releases on American Choral Catalog.
Composer Stephen Paulus is the narrator of a new educational program on composing music for chorus. Commissioned by ensembles as diverse as the New York Philharmonic and the Choir of King's College, he explains his work in On Composing for Chorus , and appeals to young people to learn more about music and heighten their experience of singing in a chorus.
More recently, Stephen Paulus' new carol Pilgrim Jesus was performed by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, England this past Christmas. The work was written for the Choir's Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, which is broadcast by the BBC to 186 million listeners world-wide.
Based in Northfield, Minnesota, the home of North American choral music excellence, American Choral Catalog is dedicated to the release and distribution of transcendent, beautifully recorded choral music and choral education tools. Our releases consistently garner high praise from critics and customers alike, but what is most important to us is you, the listener and viewer. Without you, there would be no reason to offer these musical gems.