Program Notes

Love in Any Language

Our fall program explores how love finds expression through a wide range of musical languages and cultural traditions. Each work approaches love from a different perspective—romantic love, marriage, loss, and renewal—reflecting the universality of human connection across time and place. These pieces, drawn from Sephardic, English, Hebrew, Mexican, African American, Korean, and contemporary jazz traditions, reveal that love—whether joyful, sorrowful, or reflective—remains one of humanity’s most enduring themes.

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¡Ah, el novio no quere dinero!
Traditional Sephardic, arr. Mack Wilberg

The concert opens with this traditional Sephardic wedding song arranged by Mack Wilberg, the long-serving Music Director of the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square and one of the most widely performed choral arrangers of our time. Wilberg is known for his hymn and folk arrangements, exciting orchestrations, and rhythmic vitality. Sung in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), the song humorously declares that the groom wants no riches—only his bride of good fortune. Built on a single folk melody heard first from the tenor soloist, the arrangement features drums, tambourine, triangle, and hand clapping. The cumulative layering of sound evokes the communal spirit of a Mediterranean wedding, where love is celebrated not as private sentiment but as public joy.

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See the Chariot at Hand (Wedding Chorus)
Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams was one of the most influential English composers of the twentieth century, revered for his ability to blend folk idioms, Renaissance polyphony, and a modern harmonic language into music that feels both timeless and distinctly British. See the Chariot at Hand originated in his 1929 opera Sir John in Love, based on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. Vaughan Williams wove into the libretto a number of Elizabethan poems, including Ben Jonson’s “See the chariot at hand,” a lyric poem celebrating the supreme beauty and virtue of a woman, portraying her as a divine being carried in a chariot by Love. He later adapted this music for his 1931 choral cantata In Windsor Forest, where it became the “Wedding Chorus.” The piece exemplifies Vaughan Williams’s gift for lyricism and text setting—his use of modal inflection, rich choral sonorities, and flowing melodic lines creates a scene of festive pageantry rooted in both poetic and musical tradition.

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Eric Whitacre’s Five Hebrew Love Songs occupies a special place in his output, representing both a personal and artistic milestone. Whitacre, one of the most performed choral composers of the early 21st century, is celebrated for his luminous harmonic language and sensitivity to text. The Five Hebrew Love Songs originated in 1996 when Whitacre, then a Juilliard student, traveled to Germany with violinist Friedemann Eichhorn and his then-girlfriend, Israeli soprano Hila Plitmann. At his request, Plitmann—who later became his wife—wrote several brief Hebrew poems as “postcards” of their relationship. Whitacre composed the songs while the two were on holiday in the Swiss Alps, and they premiered them a week later in Eichhorn’s hometown of Speyer. Each song captures a distinct moment between the couple: the playful pun of Kalá Kallá (“light bride”), the snow-bell sounds in Éyze shéleg! that mirror the cathedral bells outside their window, and the tender introspection of Rakút (“tenderness”). Later arranged for choir, piano and violin, the songs maintain the transparency of the original while extending their expressive reach. What began as a private musical love letter has become one of the most beloved modern choral song cycles.

 

Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
Traditional African American Spiritual, arr. Shavon Lloyd

This traditional African American spiritual originated during the era of slavery in the United States, expressing the anguish of families torn apart by forced separation. Passed down orally for generations, the song became widely known in the 1870s through performances by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, who introduced it to concert audiences across the country and abroad. Its refrain—“Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, a long way from home”—embodies both deep personal loss and collective resilience. Composer and conductor Shavon Lloyd brings a contemporary sensitivity to this setting, preserving the simplicity of the melody while enriching it with modern choral harmonies. The inclusion of a tenor saxophone solo—lyrical, improvisatory, and plaintive—extends the song’s emotional reach. Within this program, the spiritual serves as a testament to love’s most basic impulse: the human need for belonging, connection, and the hope of reunion.

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Golden Field (Guhm-Jan-Dee)
Hye-Young Cho

Hye-Young Cho, a Korean composer and pianist, often explores the intersection of human emotion and nature through vivid choral textures and lyrical instrumental writing. The title Guhm-Jan-Dee, literally “Golden Grass,” refers in Korean burial tradition to the green turf that covers a traditional tomb mound—a poetic symbol of the deceased’s continued connection to nature and the renewal of life. The song depicts a woman grieving the loss of her husband as spring returns, the grass gently moving in the breeze above his resting place. The contrast between her personal grief and the signs of renewal around her creates a poignant tension. Scored for solo flute, oboe, and piano four hands, the piece balances stillness and movement, transforming private sorrow into a meditation on love’s endurance and the cyclical rhythm of life.

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Songs of Love
Will Todd

The program concludes with Will Todd’s Songs of Love, performed with jazz combo—piano, bass, drums, and saxophone. Todd, a British composer, pianist, and jazz musician, is celebrated for integrating elements of jazz harmony and rhythm into choral writing without sacrificing lyricism or accessibility. His music frequently bridges sacred and secular idioms, uniting the emotional immediacy of jazz with the structural clarity of classical form. In A Kiss, the choir functions as the wind and brass of a big band, propelling fast, syncopated rhythms and harmonically rich jazz chords that mirror the energy and unpredictability of romantic passion. I Sing Because… offers a contrasting tone: reflective, lyrical, and tender. Its text speaks of love remembered and internalized—a love that shapes identity and endures beyond separation. Together, the two pieces close the program with a contemporary voice that honors both the intensity and resilience of human affection.

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Across languages, cultures, and centuries, these works reveal love’s many dialects—joyful, sorrowful, sacred, and human. Whether expressed in Sephardic wedding songs, English poetry, Hebrew lyricism, or jazz improvisation, love remains a constant thread in the tapestry of song, uniting voices across boundaries and time.