Earth, Beloved

Conductor Notes:

SSAA choir and orchestra

If you wish your adult treble choir could get on stage with a full symphony orchestra to be the star of the show, this is your work.  I could not be prouder of the creation of this 12-minute work by an extraordinary Canadian composer. This helps fill a huge gap in our voicing’s repertoire.  The music really works – for the choir, for the orchestra, and for the audience.  The inspired and timely text by Wendy Jean MacLean is about the history and importance of the earth from its earliest days and sings like a dream. We premiered this shortly after Earth Day 2024 with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Music Director Otto Tausk with the composer in attendance. Unless you were to cut down the size of the orchestra (ask Nick for advice if so), I would recommend a choir of 60 voices or more. If you have room in your concert venue, an 80+ voice choir would sound magnificent. We expanded Elektra to 50 voices for this project, as the last thing I wanted was for someone to say, after all the work and expense of commissioning this piece, “It was lovely but I couldn’t hear the choir”.  We were amplified very subtly to ensure balance. Also, the text was projected on screens for the audience. This work is both an extremely good piece of music and an advocacy tool for treble choirs.  I hope it is programmed at universities and in communities everywhere.  Highly recommended.

Instrumentation
2 Flutes
2 Oboes
2 Clarinets in B-􀀸at
2 Bassoons
2 Horns in F
2 (Tenor) Trombones
Bass Trombone
Timpani
Percussion 1
(Glockenspiel, Suspended Cymbal, Tam-Tam, Vibraphone–no motor needed)
Percussion 2
(Triangle, Bass Drum)
SSAA choir (50 voices or more recommended)

String section (8/8/6/5/4 suggested)

Note that the audio file supplied here is computer-generated, including AI’s uncanny ability to fake the words.  Nick has access to an archival recording of the premiere that can be used for perusal purposes only.  Please inquire through his website.

Earth, Beloved opened a Diamond Masterworks concert of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in which the other repertoire was Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto and John Adams’ Harmonielehre.

VSO Music Director Otto Tausk had this to say about the work’s premiere:

“In April 2024 I had the great pleasure of leading a premiere performance of the work Earth, Beloved by BC-based composer Nicholas Ryan Kelly. A work for choir and orchestra, commissioned by Elektra and Morna Edmundson with the generous support of the Hugh Davidson Fund. It was a very successful collaboration of Elektra and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. The choir was extremely well prepared, and I was immediately struck by the flexible and beautiful sound of the choir already at the first rehearsal. The orchestra responded quickly to the obvious and catching musical inspiration that radiated from the members of Elektra on stage. From the first moment we started making music I felt a strong and open musical connection that contributed greatly and led to some outstanding performances. It was also felt and understood by the audience and musicians that the work by Nicholas Kelly on the topic of our vulnerable earth is of huge importance in our time. A really special work that found its shape and ability to transfer its urgency due to the effort of Elektra and the partnership with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, for which I am very grateful to have been part of.”

Composer / Arranger Notes:

Since Holst didn’t write an Earth movement–and the Planets requires a treble choir to come in just for a few minutes of anticlimactic singing at the end–wouldn’t it be nice to have a piece that could be paired with The Planets that would give the choir something more exciting to do? That was the genesis of this piece, but it quickly turned into something more–largely thanks to its wonderful text, written specifically for this piece by Ontario poet Wendy Jean MacLean.

Nick wrote about the experience in a Facebook post, saying “Congratulations to Elektra and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra on this weekend’s performance! It was a thrill to hear my new composition brought to life by these wonderful ensembles. Extra thanks to poet Wendy Jean MacLean for writing such breathtaking lyrics for this piece. As a composer, I felt like I was just nurturing the music that was there in her words. And immense gratitude to Morna Edmundson for her vision, persistence, and advocacy in bringing this project together–as well as her sensitivity and musicality in bringing it to life.”

Commissioned by Elektra Women’s Choir, Morna Edmundson, Artistic Director, with the generous assistance of the Diane Loomer Commissioning Fund and with the assistance of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the Victoria Symphony through the Hugh Davidson Fund at the Victoria Foundation.

Text:

Earth, Beloved by Wendy Jean MacLean

Earth, beloved planet, you tell your story in each of our cells.
Fourteen billion years of learning to breathe
as light falls in love with water and air
and brings forth green songs
that meet and mate as leaf and root.
Molecules and memories sing the music of the spheres
in the harmony of skin and prayer.

Lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, atmosphere, stratosphere, noosphere:
a day for each age, and the seventh day for resting.
Breathing in, breathing out, creating, resting.
It is good, it is good.

Earth, beloved planet, our ancient souls remember the shattering of stars.
Our bodies hold the memories of the heaving and the resting
and the movement of breath spiralling into life
emerging dust from dust, fault by fault,
mountain by mountain, moment by moment,
breath by breath. The air we breathe becomes the songs we sing.
In the songlines of galaxies your wisdom is incised in light
that shines in moments of wonder and in the eyes of children.

Earth, beloved planet, when did we let our hearts grow dull?
The ancestors cry for your medicine: Heal us with rivers!
Stitch together the wounds of your forests with pine needles and prayer.
Soothe the burning! Mend the broken!
Comfort us with night skies
and tuck us into hope until we remember,
humbled by the soil, where our souls grow in darkness,
stretched by the horizon, where today meets tomorrow,
you trust us to be your storytellers,
blessed by the joy of being home for the song.
We hear you singing in our cells and shining in our souls.
Breathing in, breathing out
in oceans and contintents, embers and fossils,
life and love, creating, resting.
It is good, it is good.

– poem copyright Wendy Jean MacLean

Text Source

Wendy Jean MacLean