This Snow Globe World

December 19, 2020
Austin, Texas
Adrienne Pedrotti Bingamon, Inversion Da Capo Artistic Director

Inversion’s treble ensemble, Da Capo, presents This Snow Globe World, a virtual concert celebrating the music of wintertide. We explore the many expressions of the season, from darkness and solitude to elation and rebirth.

Program

Text:

Winter Walk, 2019 from The Longest Nights
music by Timothy Takach
text by Brian Newhouse
soloist Carol Brown

The longest night
The brightest moon
The sharpest sting of cold
The barest branch
The hardest earth
My breath the only cloud
And I am out walking to ask the winter moon:
Who will I be when the spring rains come?
The air so still
Smoke rising straight
The snowbanks sleep so deep
The quiet star
The silent night
A lone bird wakes and sings
And I am out walking to hear my heart.

Lady Icicle, 2007
From Songs of Tekahionwake
music by Martha Hill Duncan
text by E. Pauline Johnson

Lady Icicle
Little Lady Icicle is dreaming in the north-land
And gleaming in the north-land, her pillow all aglow;
For the frost has come and found her
With an ermine robe around her
Where little Lady Icicle lies dreaming in the snow.
Little Lady Icicle is waking in the north-land,
And shaking in the north-land her pillow to and fro;
And the hurricane a-skirling
Sends the feathers all a-whirling
Where little Lady Icicle is waking in the snow.
Little Lady Icicle is laughing in the north-land,
And quaffing in the north-land her wines that overflow;
All the lakes and rivers crusting
That her finger-tips are dusting,
Where little Lady Icicle is laughing in the snow.
Little Lady Icicle is singing in the north-land,
And bringing from the north-land a music wild and low;
And the fairies watch and listen
Where her silver slippers glisten,
As little Lady Icicle goes singing through the snow.

La ciudad sumergida, 2020
music by Adrienne Inglis
text by Alfonsina Storni
soloist Katie Gleason

Excerpt from Río de La Plata en lluvia from Mascarilla y Trébol (1938)

Ya casi el cielo te apretaba, ciego,
y sumergida una ciudad tenías
en tu cuerpo de grises heliotropos
neblivelado en su copón de llanto.

[The sky was about to embrace you, blind, and you had in your body of gray heliotropes a submerged city, with the misty sky like a chalice about to overflow with tears.]

The Bells, 2019
music by Susan Meitz
text by Edgar Allen Poe
Joshua Chai, piano

Hear the sledges with the bells—
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

Winter Solstice Chant, 2020
music by Carol Brown
text by Annie Finch
Valerie Fischer, cello

Vines, leaves, roots of darkness, growing,
now you are uncurled and cover our eyes
with the edge of winter sky
leaning over us in icy stars.
Vines, leaves, roots of darkness, growing,
come with your seasons, your fullness, your end.

There is No Rose, 2020
music by Robbie LaBanca
Trinity Carol Roll, 15th c.
trio: Claudia Carroll, Patricia Combs, Holt Skinner

There is no rose of such virtue
As is the rose that bare Jesu;
Alleluia.

For in this rose contained was
Heaven and earth in little space;
Res miranda. (Wonderful thing)

By that rose we may well see
There be one God in persons three,
Pari forma. (Equal in form)

The angels sungen the shepherds too:
Gloria in excelsis deo:
Gaudeamus. (Let us rejoice)

Leave we all this worldly mirth,
And follow we this joyful birth;
Transeamus. (Let us go)

Alleluia, res miranda,
Pari forma, gaudeamus,
Transeamus.

Makedonska, 2006 by Moira Smiley
Valerie Fischer, cello
soloists Juliane Orlandini, Mary Kettlewell

We Toast the Days, 2013
words and music by Linda Kachelmeier
soloists Page Stephens, Katrina Saporsantos

When the clock strikes twelve and another year has gone,
I give a kiss to you,
As remembrance of the past we have shared and the future yet to come.

We toast the days, both good and bad, the old friends and the new.
When the clock strikes twelve and another year has gone,
I give a kiss to you.

While the night is long and the bitter cold has come,
we lengthen our embrace
To sustain us as we mourn our regrets and the fear of days unknown.

We toast the days...

As we stand on the edge of another bright new year,
I take your hand in mine
With assurance of the courage we will find
and the hope that leads us on.

We toast the days...

View the concert here: https://youtu.be/nfgoLBb3HWc.

Inversion Ensemble

Trevor Shaw, Artistic Director
Robbie LaBanca, Managing Director
Adrienne Inglis, Outreach Director
Carol Brown, Production Director
Juli Orlandini, Art Director

Audio Production by Trevor Shaw
Video Production and Editing by Carol Brown
Graphic Design & Marketing by Juli Orlandini