Winter Stars

In the summer of 2023, I came across the poetry of Sara Teasdale and was particularly drawn to her poem "Winter Stars" from her 1920 collection entitled Flame and Shadow. I had wanted to write a choral piece for women's voices, and the text of this work seemed to speak to that particular medium. It was so captivating, in fact, that in a fit of inspiration, I composed the work in just three short days between June 1st and June 3rd; this was perhaps uncharacteristic for me since I have always been a rather slow and methodical composer, but this piece seemed to have almost a life of its own. In turn, I submitted this piece to the Baltimore Canticle Singer's call for scores, and I was honored to have had it selected as the winning entry. It received its premiere performance by that ensemble on December 6th, 2024, at St. David's Episcopal Church in Baltimore, MD. The harmonic language of the piece uses mode mixture to create contemplative and passionate phrases that mirror the poetic imagery and emotion in the author's original work. Special care should be taken to balance and tune the chords that arise. The metric notation is meant to convey a sense of freedom in the musical line rather than a stricture of varying time signatures. That said, any rubato' that the choir may interpret should maintain the rhythmic integrity of heterophonic sections. At the director's discretion, in mm. 22-23 (and similarly mm. 47-48), the soprano 1 part may be sung by a few singers, with the rest of the first soprano's supporting on soprano 2 in those moments.