women's choir

"This Song of Mine" Recording Now Posted

In April, "This Song of Mine" for women's choir and piano was premiered by the Houghton College Women's Choir conducted by my friend David Horace Davies.  David recently sent me the live recording from their premiere and it is wonderful (listen below)!  His direction of the piece and the sensitivity of the singing is just beautiful.  "This Song of Mine" is a simple lullaby, and I love the way this performance portrayed the piece.  Bravo David and the Houghton College Women's Choir! [audio http://www.stevedanyew.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Danyew_this_song.mp3]

Houghton College Women's Choir David Horace Davies, Conductor Live Concert Recording - April 2012

"This Song of Mine" Premieres Tonight at Houghton College!

My new work for women's choir and piano, "This Song of Mine," will be premiered tonight at Houghton College in Houghton, NY.  "This Song of Mine" will be published this fall by Santa Barbara Music, and tonight the work will be presented by the Houghton College Women's Choir under the direction of David Horace Davies. Houghton College Women’s Choir directed by David Horace Davies April 25th, 2012 – 8:00pm Recital Hall – Center for the Arts Houghton College

Women's Choir Piece - In Progress

In a previous post, I shared a beautiful text which I have been planning to set.  I've been working out some ideas for weeks and 2 weeks ago I decided that the piece would work well for women's choir (SA, some divisi) and piano. So, I've been hard at work and the piece is basically done now, just some editing and tweaking to do. It's one of those pieces I just wanted to write, and wasn't being written for specific performance or ensemble.  So...that means the premiere performance is up for grabs!  I'm posting this on my blog and facebook to see if a women's choir out there would like to premiere the piece.

If you/your ensemble is interested in premiering the piece, let me know (email steve [at] stevedanyew [dot] com).  As a special holiday treat, I'm willing to provide the PDF version for FREE to the ensemble that will premiere the piece!

The whole piece is about 4.5 minutes long.  The piece is not very difficult - sort of a delicate lullaby-type song.  The text is taken from a beautiful poem titled "My Song" by Rabindranath Tagore -  more details about the text follow the two pages below...

Tagore's "My Song" is a simple and beautiful poem - a collection of statements, promises, about "this song of mine." I selected several of the lines from the poem to make up the text for this piece. Here are the lines included in the text:

This song of mine will wind its music around you, my child, like the fond arms of love. This song of mine will touch your forehead like a kiss of blessing. My song will be like a pair of wings to your dreams, it will transport your heart to the verge of the unknown. It will be like the faithful star overhead when dark night is over your road. When you are alone it will sit by your side and whisper in your ear.

Beautiful words from Tagore, don't you think? If you are interested in premiering the piece, please contact me at steve [at] stevedanyew [dot] com. Thanks!