Song sponsorship information
We invite you to consider sponsoring a piece for our spring concerts. A donation of $500 or more provides the gift of an exclusive sponsorship with a dedication!
Once you’ve chosen a song to sponsor from our Zeffy site, you will be asked to add your note of dedication of about 15 words or less, which will appear in our “To Life! To Love!” program and is the perfect opportunity to honor someone you love.
Alternatively, you can email sponsor@nwrs.org and indicate which piece from the list below you would like to sponsor.
Measure Me, Sky!
The music of American choral composer Elaine Hagenberg (b. 1979) combines drama and poignance. In her words, “‘Measure Me, Sky!’ encourages singers to take hold of their limitless potential. Ascending vocal lines stretch across a driving accompaniment, as if reaching out to grasp the expanse depicted in Leonora Speyer’s rapturous poem. This impassioned piece builds through key changes and several returns of the opening material before arriving at its brilliant final chord, reflecting ‘Loveliness, wings for my flight’!
Find a sample recording here.
Love’s Philosophy
British composer Cecilia McDowall (b. 1951) takes a well-known poem by Percy Shelley in this tender choral setting for the experienced unaccompanied choir. Praised for a “communicative gift that is very rare in modern music,” McDowall is one of the leading choral composers of her generation. This piece ties the idea of love with natural world, reflecting upon how our perception of love interacts with the beauty around us.
This newer work does not have a high-quality sample recording available online.
Three Madrigals
With texts taken from William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure and Much Ado About Nothing, this three-movement work by legendary American composer Emma Lou Diemer (b. 1927) has been a favorite of choral groups for more than fifty years. These modern songs explore the ups and downs of love with much wit and wonder in the choral lines and piano accompaniment. Listen closely and you’ll hear the legacy of the English madrigal tradition and perhaps even hints of midcentury musical kinship with Leonard Bernstein.
Find a sample recording here.
Liebeslieder Waltzes (op. 52)
Northwest Repertory Singers is delighted to present the sixteen choral movements from the first collection of Liebeslieder waltzes by Johannes Brahms (1833–1897). The twenty-minute masterwork explores the range of romantic love and related emotions from blissful to bittersweet, often turning to the natural world for metaphors. Meanwhile, the four-hand piano accompaniment provides the waltzes (and perhaps a little wine, too). Was Brahms motivated to write the Liebeslieder by unrequited love for composer and pianist Clara Schumann? We can’t answer that question, but the Liebeslieder would be a fitting love letter!
Find a sample recording here.
Set Me As a Seal
A selection from the famous poetry of the biblical Song of Songs is exquisitely set by René Clausen (b. 1953). The text affirms love as the powerful force that even death cannot surpass. Perhaps more than any other living American composer, Clausen masters a lush, expressive choral sound, and “Set Me As a Seal” is a stunning example of Clausen’s craft.
Find a sample recording here.
I Would Be True
Undine Smith Moore (1904–1989) has been described as “the Dean of Black Women Composers.” Although trained as a classical pianist, Moore was especially interested in vocal music, and her compositional output consists mostly of choral pieces and works for solo voice. Smith acknowledged “black folk music and Bach as true influences,” and one can hear echoes of both in the choral and piano writing for this gem. “I Would Be True” encourages a virtuous life well-lived, culminating in laughter and love: “I would look up and laugh and love and lift!”
Find a sample recording here.
This Little Light of Mine
Perhaps no other composer-arranger of his generation captured the African American spiritual with more passion and imagination than Moses Hogan (1957–2003). Hogan’s original composition on the familiar text of “This Little Light of Mine” is both reflective and determined, with opportunities for soloists to shine alongside the a capella choir. It’s a true expression of life and love from the heart of the composer, and a masterpiece of the genre.
Find a sample recording here.
My Flame the Song
The poetry of Welsh-Scottish composer Euan Tait is set for choir and piano by Norwegian composer Kim André Arnesen (b. 1980). Arnesen writes, “In making music, singing together lights an extraordinary process in us: we connect from the depths of our beings with each other… we connect to the eternal singing of that vast eternal chord of being human.” With this piece, NWRS shares with you the “fragile flame held in the heart, it joins us all, love to love.”
Find a sample recording here.