Dear Friends,

     Next season Madrigalia will be presenting Earthkeeping II. Many of you will remember our first powerful Earthkeeping concert in 2018, with its images from area photographers projected in the dark, timed to interpret the music, followed by our Earthkeeping Fair, with booths from environmental organizations.

   We are excited to share that we have engaged two Rochester area composers to write us new choral works for next year's program. (We will introduce them later). We hope to make a contribution to the current literature, as choral groups around the world are singing about these issues.

    The first step, and one of the hardest, in composing a choral work is finding just the right set of words, the poem that will charm music from the composer, that will find a place in the heart of the listener. I’m guessing my colleagues, like me, will read scores of poems to find one promising candidate.

    Let’s help them out in their search, by crowdsourcing our collective knowledge of possible poems!

  Our program will again cover many aspects of ‘earthkeeping', including:

• Earth’s beauty and bounty

• The complex web of life

• Our reliance on our environment

• Our responsibility to our environment

• Messages of warning

• Messages of hope

   Looking for a good lyric:

• Direct, fairly simple

• Good images and/or memorable lines

• Verse, some kind of rhythm to the pattern of syllables, fits well with music

• Rhyme, not necessary, but can add

• Usually 4 to 20 lines

   Here are some examples from Earthkeeping 2018:

Out of heat, out of sun, comes the hunger to everyone.
Famine’s teeth, famine’s claw, on the sands of Africa.
Rain, rain, rain.  - from “Famine Song” by VIDA

The ice is crying.
The waters will rise with every tear. - from “Cry” by Glenn McClure

Patient as stars, they build in air
Tier after tier a timbered choir,
Stout beams upholding weightless grace
of song, a blessing on this place.  - from “Great Trees” by Wendell Berry

     If you would like to submit a lyric(s) about earthkeeping for our composers to consider, please click the button below. If you can, please include the publication it is from. If it is under copyright, Madrigalia will need to secure permission and pay a royalty. We will collect submissions through Monday, May 22. We will select two top submissions. Whether or not the composers use them for their compositions, those who submitted them, and their guests, will be our honored guests at Earthkeeping 2024!

    Wishing you a joyous Spring, and hoping to see you at our fabulous “Music About Music” concerts coming up on May 5 and 6. 
 

Cary Ratcliff
Artistic Director, Madrigalia