I Go Among Trees

for SATB choir and Marimba

Written: 2019
Duration: 15'
Instrumentation: SATB choir (with divisis, SSAATTBB) and marimba (5-octaves)
Commissioned by the New Amsterdam Singers, Clara Longstreth, Music Director, in honor of the chorus’ 50th Anniversary and the 65th Birthday of Barbara Zucker-Pinchoff.
World Premieres: New Amsterdam Singers, Broadway Presbyterian Church, New York, NY, December 10 and 12, 2021.
Publisher: Bill Holab Music

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PROGRAM NOTe

Perhaps because I have fond memories of hiking in the Adirondack Mountains when I was young, I have always been drawn to forests and meadows. There is something deeply satisfying about spending time among trees, meadows, and in nature, and away from the urban environment. I Go Among Trees consists of settings of three poems that celebrate this terrain, and the poets I chose all express a profound affection for the natural world in their writings.

The first movement, I Go Among Trees, is a setting of a poem from a book of poetry entitled A Timbered Choir by Wendell Berry. In this contemplative, zen-like poem, Berry expresses the meditative feelings of being alone among the trees, and of being afraid and experiencing fear, all while using the metaphor of singing and songs to express a connection to both the outside world and feelings inside oneself. By the end of the poem, the narrator is able to let go and is at peace with these feelings.

The second movement, March in New England, is based on the poem of the same name by May Sarton. The scene describes the transition from the colder, harsher months of winter, to the greener, more colorful months of spring. The words in the final stanza, with the image of rushing “to break the trees open” and the “torrents of English spring” help to provide a climactic ending to the movement.

The poem for the final movement, The Kestrel, is by the English poet John Frederick Freeman, and was suggested to me by Barbara Zucker-Pinchoff. Barbara liked the poem because it reminded her of the meadows around her family’s country house, and specifically of the kestrels that take up residence there. The percussive sounds the choir makes reminds me of kestrels flapping their wings. Barbara was kind enough to invite me and my family out to her house, so I saw the meadow with my own eyes, and this helped provide inspiration.

I Go Among Trees was commissioned by the New Amsterdam Singers, Clara Longstreth, Music Director, in honor of the chorus’ 50th Anniversary and the 65th Birthday of Barbara Zucker-Pinchoff.

  • I Go Among Trees

    I. I Go Among Trees
    by Wendell Berry

    I go among trees and sit still.
    All my stirring becomes quiet
    around me like circles on water.
    My tasks lie in their places
    where I left them, asleep like cattle.

    Then what is afraid of me comes
    and lives a while in my sight.
    What it fears in me leaves me,
    and the fear of me leaves it.
    It sings, and I hear its song.

    Then what I am afraid of comes.
    I live for a while in its sight.
    What I fear in it leaves it,
    and the fear of it leaves me.
    It sings, and I hear its song.

    After days of labor,
    mute in my consternations,
    I hear my song at last,
    and I sing it. As we sing,
    the day turns, the trees move.

    Copyright © 1998 by Wendell Berry, from A Timbered Choir. Reprinted by permission of Counterpoint Press.

    II. March in New England
    by May Sarton

    Here in New England where the ice still grips
    And pussy willows have not put on fur,
    The masts are earthbound of the sleeping ships,
    And only clammers on the beaches stir.
    All seems exhausted by its own withholding,
    Its own withstanding. There is no unfolding.
    Even the new moon promises no better
    Than a thin joke about much colder weather.

    This harsh world locks itself up in the season.
    It is clearly not the time and not the place
    To ask for summer love, for more than reason,
    To hope to lift the cloud from any face.
    Look at the trees, how even they determine
    To hold their leaves back under the tough skin.
    “Keep snug” is their advice, and they endure,
    For frost is on the way again for sure.

    Yet in New England before spring I’ve seen
    The sea unfold as sumptuous as silk,
    Have watched the cold world tilt back into green,
    And watched the waves spill out like foaming milk—
    Till the eye, starved for color and for light,
    Wept at such majesty beside such blight,
    Would rush to break trees open, and to bring
    To this locked world torrents of English spring!

    March in New England by May Sarton, from Collected poems: 1930-1993. © W.W. Norton & Company, 1993. Reprinted with permission from Lippincott Massie McQuilkin.

    III. The Kestrel
    by John Freeman

    In a great western wind we climbed the hill
    And saw the clouds run up, ride high and sink;
    And there were shadows running at our feet
    Till it seemed the very earth could not be still,
    Nor could our hearts be still, nor could we think
    Our hearts could ever be still, our thought less fleet
    Than the dizzy clouds, less than the flying wind.
    Eastward the valley and the dark steep hill
    And other hills and valleys lost behind
    In mist and light. The hedges were not yet bare
    Though the wind picked at them as he went by.
    The woods were fire, a fire that dense or clear
    Burned steady, but could not burn up the shadows
    Rooted where the trees’ roots entangled lie,
    In darkness; or a flame burned solitary
    In the middle of the highest of brown meadows,
    Burned solitary and unconsuming where
    A red tree stooped to its black shadow and
    The kestrel’s shadow hunted the kestrel up the hill.
    We climbed, and as we stood (where yet we stand
    And of the visioned sun and shadow still drink)
    Happiness like a shadow chased our thought
    That tossed on free wings up and down the world;
    Till by that wild swift-darting shadow caught
    Our free spirits their free pinions furled.
    Then as the kestrel began once more the heavens to climb
    A new-winged spirit rose clear above the hills of time.

    This poem is in the public domain.