Fire-Flowers (from the suite Fire-Flowers)

Program Notes:

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Conductor Notes:

A few months ago, Nelson-based composer and musician Don Macdonald sent me the scores and recordings for a new 7-movement suite for women’s choir called Fire-Flowers. Clicking on the link, I found absolutely beautiful music and equally beautifully singing by Les Choristes from the University of Western Ontario under conductor Jennifer Moir . It was a coincidence – Don didn’t know about our upcoming concert and its theme! I immediately shuffled things and programmed the title movement to book-end the Fire Flowers concert, as the poem is the same as Tim Corlis’ Fire Flowers

Poem by E. Pauline Johnson (1861-1913) from Flint and Feather

And only where the forest fires have sped,
Scorching relentlessly the cool north lands,
A sweet wild flower lifts its purple head,
And, like some gentle spirit sorrow-fed,
It hides the scars with almost human hands.

And only to the heart that knows of grief,
Of desolating fire, of human pain,
There comes some purifying sweet belief,
Some fellow-feeling beautiful, if brief.
And life revives, and blossoms once again.