| The
Story of "Season of Celebration"
My
former manager, Stephanie Maillet, and I would sit down
once a week for our "fantasy sessions." In
these sessions we'd describe our world as if it were
a year from now, and then five years from now.
We'd use a timer and each fantasize aloud for two minutes,
while the other took notes. One of these sessions
happened while I was composing a new holiday suite to
premiere with the "New England String Ensemble."
During Stephanie's fantasy session she said, "I
see you playing this suite and the whole audience is
singing along."
That
image captured me completely. I love singing with
orchestra. The exhilaration of that experience is what
keeps me going during the sleep-deprived weeks and months
it takes for me to compose and orchestrate the pieces
I play with orchestra.
How
could I give other people that same experience? People
who may not read music, people who don't have weeks
to practice? How could I write something that
would give them that exhilarating experience of singing
together, in harmony and with an orchestra - but something
they could learn in less than five minutes?
I
kept thinking of the moment, in Beethoven's Ninth, when
the chorus stands up and sings "Ode to Joy,"
and how, if I'm in the audience, it feels so unfair
that I can't ALSO stand up and sing -- I mean, I KNOW
the tune ...
That's
when I thought of writing a very simple round that we
could learn quickly in performance, and I sat down to
write "Season of Celebration." I wanted a
simple holiday song that celebrated the common message
throughout all the traditions of this holiday, and that
seemed to me to be the fact that this is a season of
celebration and song, whether religious or secular,
thus the lyrics: "This is a season of celebration.
This is a season of song."
And
I wanted to include the idea that this celebration,
and the messages of peace, reverence, joy and celebration,
are really just a kick-off for the rest of the year,
a kind of running-start, a re-affirmation of those feelings.
And I wanted to also include a Scottish tradition I
especially love, of holding hands and singing at the
end of every Ceilidgh (music party) -- so those two
ideas make the second half of the lyrics: "And
when you take my hand it's celebration all year long."
The
round (or "canon" as a round is called
in concert parlance) comes at the end of a suite
that includes some of my favorite holiday tunes starting
with horns playing "Dona Nobis Pacem," then
woodwinds and harp playing "Lully Lullay,"
and pizzicato strings, winds and brass swelling into
a rousing chorus of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen."
Then the orchestra segues into an introduction for the
"choir" (aka. the audience) - a hush falls
over the hall - we stand, and with a single violin line
as accompaniment, we begin "Season of Celebration,"
first very simply, getting our bearings, and then --
we begin the round: one voice, two, three,
four -- with the orchestra swelling, we sing it through
and repeat the lines "All year long, all year long,
all year long..." . Et voila ... we are a Heavenly
choir!! For a moment.
OK,
OK, OK ... so maybe it's corny. I know I can get
pretty corny. I know I'm not Beethoven.
I know we're not the Mormon Tabernacle choir -- but
why shouldn't we have the chance to feel just a little
of that exhilaration of singing a song, together in
harmony, part of a whole, with a symphony and choir
of a hundred voices ... or nine hundred? If only to
help remind us that just because we're sitting in the
audience doesn't mean our voices aren't an essential
part of the music.
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