Magnificat - Dale Trumbore - Harmonium Choral Society

Ecstatic Expectancy - December 2023
Under the direction of Dr. Anne J. Matlack
Harmonium Choral Society
The Presbyterian Church of Morristown
David Davis, piano; Rebecca Harris Lee, violin; Danielle Sinclair, violin; Margaret Roberts, viola; Michael Holak, cello
Since she won the Harmonium High School Composition Contest almost 20 years ago, Dale
Trumbore’s compositions have been commissioned, awarded, and performed widely in the U.S. and internationally by a diverse group of outstanding ensembles. Trumbore holds a dual degree in music composition and English from the University of Maryland and a M.M. degree in composition from the University of Southern California. As well as being a wonderful composer, Dale is an accomplished writer. She recently published the book Staying Composed: Overcoming Anxiety and Self-Doubt within a Creative Life. As well as premiering her student work, Sing to the Lord ( • Sing to the Lord - Dal... ) (which is still in her catalogue), Harmonium commissioned Where Go the Boats? in 2012 to celebrate the 15th anniversary of our composition contest, and participated in a commission consortium and performed the East Coast premiere of Glorious, Glorious in 2015 ( • Glorious, Glorious - D... .
Dale provides the following program note for Magnificat:
Again and again, I find myself drawn to poems and other writings that present a very human perspective on the divine. In Lynn Ungar’s poem “Magnificat,” she contemplates an apparent contradiction in Mary's words: that magnifying God could in fact mean making God smaller, in the form of a child. Just as the poem turns these words over, finding new meaning each time, the music spins these repeated phrases into new harmonic perspectives. Ungar's poem grounds the traditional Christmas story in minute details like the urgent hunger of an infant. Her text, like all good poems, uses the small, precise, and confined nature of poetry to magnify our humanity.
Magnificat was commissioned through the following consortium: The Carson Chamber Singers through the Carson City Symphony Association, led by Richard Hutton (World Premiere); North Shore Choral Society, led by Julia Davids (Midwest Premiere); Harmonium Choral Society, led by Anne Matlack (East Coast Premiere); and Cantabile Chamber Singers, led by Cheryll Chung (Canadian Premiere). www.daletrumbo...
My soul doth magnify the Lord
said Mary, under circumstances
which make it something of a startling
utterance. Not I accept the will of the Lord.
Not I bow before the Lord.
Not even I give thanks to the Lord.
No, Mary, this young woman,
presumably unfamiliar with angels
or divine voices of any kind,
let alone those pronouncing
that salvation would grow inside
her ordinary flesh-this woman
who may be innocent, but hardly seems naïve-
says something remarkable.
My soul magnifies the Lord.
Who I am, what I do, how I choose
makes God bigger. As if God
were to slip between microscope slides
and appear in never-before-seen detail.
Which is, of course, exactly
what happens. Somehow,
in being magnified God gets small,
small enough to sleep amongst the straw
and the scent of farm animals.
God magnified becomes particular,
tangible, urgent as a hungry child.
And Mary, like so many women
before her and after, puts the baby
to her breast, where they both grow
vast in one another’s eyes.
Full program notes available on our website: www.harmonium.org/
Video/audio production: www.showfocused...
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[@jabezvancleef8532]

This is a nice recording. I would appreciate being able to see the words of the poem listed in the comment.

[@HarmoniumChoralSociety]

The poem has already been provided in the video description and in the closed captions. You can also find it In the program notes on our website.