And When I Rise - Wendell Berry/Wendy Tuck/Peter Amidon

Short story:
Peter Amidon's arrangement of Wendy Tuck's setting of her adaptation of Wendell Berry's poem "When I Rise Up". Available as a free download at amidonchoralmu...
Longer story from Peter Amidon:
The gifted gospel pianist/singing leader Kathy Bullock introduced us to "And When I Rise" as a call and response song at a singing workshop we were leading together in Scotland. Later Mia Bertelli led the same call and response version the Country Dance & Song Society's Pinewoods Harmony of Song & Dance in Plymouth, MA. When I considered using the song for a church anthem at the Guilford (VT) Community Church UCC, I found a beautiful version of the song from Plum Village. Plum Village, near Bordeaux in southwest France, is the largest international practice center in the Plum Village tradition, and the first monastic community founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) in the West. The Plum Village version of "And When I Rise" was the inspiration for this arrangement.
No one seemed to know the source of the song.
In the spring of 2019 I received the following email from Wendy Tuck:
"I recently heard a version of “And when I rise” on Fiona Richie’s program on NPR, called Thistle and Shamrock, on June 13, this year, and it was played by a Celtic fiddler who thought Pete Seeger had written it! I yelled out to my husband, that’s my song! I had composed the tune, at any rate, in 1974, when I was living with a group of non-violent activists in Spencer WV.
I took the poem, 'When I rise up', written by Kentucky poet and activist Wendell Berry, and set it to music. We sang it often, and in the tradition of folk singers, civil rights and peace activists, songs went everywhere we did, passed freely round and round. Wendell Berry wrote the poem, Stanza VIII on page 57, in 'Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer' in his book, 'Farming: A Handbook', published in 1967.
"I met with Wendell Berry last week and neither of us care about royalties, but we would greatly appreciate it if the origins of the words and music are accurate. I was 21 when I read Wendell’s poem for the first time, and its simplicity and poignancy moved me so much then. They still do."
- Peter Amidon • amidonchoralmu...

[@plodmama]

This arrangement is sublime - I adore the piano chords, such powerful restraint.

[@jenniferschelter5890]

Beautiful

[@shannonamidoncastille6844]

So beautiful!

[@patrickmassang6447]

Beautiful rendition

[@columba9745]

❤️