Text: Traditional Indonesian | Music: Indonesian folk song; arr. Ruben Federizon (1983)

Lisoi, Lisoi is a traditional drinking song that takes place in a “lapo” (drinking stall) during gatherings among friends and in Bataknese Indonesian parties. The words of this simple song is a testament to the harmonious nature of the Batak community–amusing each other in grief, joyfully laughing their sorrows away. This arrangement is by Ruben Federizon, an alumnus of the Philippine Madrigal Singers now based in Vancouver, Canada. His choral works and arrangements have been widely performed in major choral festivals and competitions across Europe, Asia, and America. 

Lisoi, Lisoi, Lisoi, Lisoi, O parmitu.
Lisoi, lisoi, lisoi, lisoi, o drinkers.

Dongan sapartinaonan, o parmitu. 
Friends to share the same feelings with, o drinkers

Dongan, Sapangkilalaan, o lotutu. 
Friends in difficult times. 

Arsak rap mangka lu pahon; O, parmitu
Together let’s forget our sadness

Tole marap mangandehon, o lotutu.
Let’s sing together. 

Sirup ma, Dorguk ma. Bandit ma galas mi. 
Slurp and drink it. Raise your glasses,

Sirup ma, Dorguk ma. Ikkon rumar doi. 
Slurp and drink it. Soon we’ll feel better.

Text: James Weldon Johnson | Music: Reginal Wright

Reginal Wright is a distinguished educator, conductor, and composer with over 20 years of experience in public school education, and is currently on the music staff at Baylor University. “The Gift to Sing”, with words by the American writer and civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson, is a story many of us can relate to: how singing helps us find joy through difficult and sad times.

Sometimes the mist overhangs my path,
And blackening clouds about me cling;
But, oh, I have a magic way
To turn the gloom to cheerful day—
I softly sing.

And if the way grows darker still,
Shadowed by Sorrow’s somber wing,
With glad defiance in my throat,
I pierce the darkness with a note,
And sing, and sing.

I brood not over the broken past,
Nor dread whatever time may bring;
No nights are dark, no days are long,
While in my heart there swells a song,
And I can sing.

Text and Music: Frank Ticheli

Frank Ticheli’s “Earth Song” was initially conceived as a work for wind ensemble–a cry and prayer for peace during a time of weariness due to the Iraq war. Ticheli’s decision to turn this into a choral work gave him trouble at first because he wanted complete thoughts to begin the piece. He found the solution by using: “Sing. Be. Live. See.” Through this work, he captures how humanity always finds a way to heal through the comforting force and refuge that is music.

Sing, Be, Live, See.
This dark stormy hour,
The wind, it stirs.
The scorched earth
Cries out in vain:
O war and power,
You blind and blur,
The torn heart
Cries out in pain.
But music and singing
Have been my refuge,
And music and singing
Shall be my light.
A light of song
Shining Strong: Alleluia!
Through darkness, pain, and strife, I’ll
Sing, Be, Live, See…
Peace.

Text: Anonymous (ca. 1919), excerpted by the composer | Music: Dale Trumbore

“I am Music sets an anonymous text, a riddle full of mystery and rich imagery, where music speaks in the first person. In this refrain, as throughout the piece, music describes the many moods and emotions it can evoke:

Through me spirits immortal speak the message
that makes the world weep, and laugh,
and wonder, and worship.

I am Music was commissioned and premiered by Choral Arts Initiative (Brandon Elliott, director). This piece is published in the G. Schirmer Dale Warland Choral Series.” – Dale Trumbore

Through me spirits immortal speak the message that makes the world weep,
And laugh, and wonder, and worship.

I tell the story of love, the story of hate,
the story that saves, and damns.
I am the incense upon which prayers float to heaven.
I am the smoke which palls over the field of battle where men lie dying with me on their lips.

I am close to the marriage altar,
and when the graves open, I stand nearby.
I call the wanderer home,
I rescue the soul from the depths.
I open the lips of lovers and through me the dead whisper to the living.

I speak through the birds of the air,
The insects of the field, the crash of the waters on rock-ribbed shores,
The sighing of wind in the trees,
and I am even heard [...]
In the clatter of wheels on city streets.

I know my brother, yet all men are my brothers;
I am of them and they are of me, for I am the instrument of God.

I am music.

Text: Charles Baudelaire, translated by Marc Tarabbia | Music: Adrienne Inglis

Commissioned by Beerthoven Inc., Be Drunk sets Marc Tarabbia’s translation of Charles Baudelaire’s poem “Enivrez-vous” for mixed chorus and piano. Is “be drunk” an ironic instruction from an eccentric alcoholic poet? Or life advice from someone who fully enjoyed mid-nineteenth century Parisian pleasures? However we understand Charles Baudelaire’s poem “Enivrez-vous,” we see joyful and reckless abandon alongside the dark despair that crosses all class boundaries. Whether passed out in a ditch, sleeping on palace steps, or curled up miserably alone in one’s own room, the solution that Baudelaire offers is to get drunk. Get drunk on wine, or on poetry, or on really anything, as you please. Live life to the fullest and ignore the inexorable march of Time. We think of our 21st century lives as time-constrained, but this syphilitic, bankrupt poet clearly felt the pressure of time in his short 47 years. The exaggerated, almost comical, melodrama in the music expresses the extremes of crushing martyrdom and delightful inebriation, all in a 3/4 waltz meter. Follow the mood swings through light-hearted gaiety and dragging lines descending to the depths of, well, sobriety, reality, and the ticking clock. — Adrienne Inglis

You must always be drunk. That's all: that's the ultimate question. 

In order not to endure the horrible burden of Time that crushes your shoulders and bends you down toward the earth, you must get drunk without respite.

But on what? On wine, poetry, or virtue, as you please. But get drunk. 

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace, on the green grass of a moat, in the gloomy solitude of your room, you wake up, the drunkenness faded or disappeared

Call on the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that escapes, everything that moans, everything that rolls, everything that sings, everything that speaks, ask what time it is; 

and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, will answer you: “It is time, get drunk!"

To avoid being the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk constantly! On wine, poetry, or virtue, as you please.

Text: Rabindranath Tagore | Music: Joan Szymko


“A Burst of Song” was commissioned by the New Jersey Gay Men’s Chorus in 2010 for their 20th Anniversary Season. Because the chorus had lived through the AIDS epidemic and had experienced the pain and grief of overwhelming loss, American composer Joan Szymko sought texts that celebrated the healing aspects of music, specifically of singing. The Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore’s most famous volume Gitanjali: Song Offerings (1912) was the primary source for this three-movement work. Another Tagore poem inspired the “birdsong” motif in the third movement: “To the birds you gave songs, the birds gave you songs in return. You gave me only voice, yet asked for more, and I sing.” During this same time, Szymko was also reading about the French composer, organist and ornithologist Oliver Messiaen, and his use of birdsong in his works. The opening notes sounded by the piano were Szymko’s nod to this happy coincidence.

No. 1: A Shower of Mercy

Solo: Ross Tarpley, tenor

When the heart is hard and parched up,
come upon me with a shower of mercy.
When grace is lost from life,
come with a burst of song.

— excerpt from “Beggarly Heart” (Gitanjali)

No. 2: A Kiss of Blessing

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.
My song will sit in the pupils of your eyes,
and will carry your sight into the heart of things.
And when my voice is silenced in death,
my song will speak in your living heart.

— “This Song of Mine” (The Crescent Moon #38)

No. 3: Thee and Me

The great pageant of thee and me has overspread the sky.
With the tune of thee and me all the air is vibrant,
and all ages pass with the hiding and seeking of thee and me.

— excerpt from “Maya” (Gitanjali)