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Spring Grass

The first dance of spring: tweedle-dum and fiddle-dee-dee!
Poet/Lyricist: 
Carl Sandburg
Commissioned by Festival Choir of Madison / Eric Townell
Winner of the Brookline Chorus Composition Competition

Celebrate spring and the return of life! Opening with an earnest longing for the first grass of spring, this dance grows ever more playful, eventually breaking into an exuberant frolic of la-la’s, doodah’s and fiddle-dee-dee’s.

Spring Grass is the final movement of the three-movement work, Spring Revels.

Item Instrumentation/Voicing Duration Level Audio Peruse Delivery Method (Print vs. Digital) Price Quantity
SEA-006-03 SATB a cappella - Choral Score
 4' MA https://www.seafarerpress.com/sites/seafarerpress.advantagelabs.com/files/samples/spring_grass.mp3 Sheet Music $3.00
SEA-006-03DEL SATB a cappella - Choral Score
 4' MA https://www.seafarerpress.com/sites/seafarerpress.advantagelabs.com/files/samples/spring_grass.mp3 Licensed PDF $3.00

Spring Grass

Poem by Carl Sandburg

Spring grass, there is a dance to be danced for you.
Come up, spring grass, if only for young feet.
Come up, spring grass, young feet ask you.

Smell of the young spring grass,
You're a mascot riding on the wind horses.
You came to my nose and spiffed me.
This is your lucky year.

Young spring grass just after the winter,
Shoots of the big green whisper of the year,
Come up, if only for young feet.
Come up, young feet ask you.

"Spring Grass" © 1928, 1956, by Carl Sandburg. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, Inc.

Composer's Note: 

In 1982, I wrote a sprightly, mischievous solo song on this delicious Carl Sandburg poem.  Twelve years, two babies, and six Wisconsin winters later, I saw another musical possibility for this poem!  More longing.....and ultimately, more play!

Performers: 

Spring Revels (complete work)
Premiere: Cayuga Vocal Ensemble / G. Roberts Kolb (Ithaca, NY)
Broadmoor Chamber Singers / Rebecca Kenneally (Natick, MA)
Brookline Chorus / William Cutter (Brookline, MA)
Cayuga Vocal Ensemble / Carl Johengen. 5th Annual Poetry and Song Concert (Ithaca, NY)
Chamber Singers of Iowa City / Martin Dicke (Iowa City, IA)
CoroAllegro / Jack Warren Burnam (Wilmington, DE)
Hamilton College Choir / Rob Kolb (Rochester and Buffalo, NY; Cincinnati and Cleveland Heights, OH; Evanston and Kenilworth, IL)
Harmonium Choral Society / Ann Matlack
Harmonium Choral Society / Ann Matlack (Madison, NJ; Geraldine R Dodge Poetry Festival in Waterloo Village, NJ)
Lively Experiment of University of Rhode Island / Mark Conley (Kingston, RI)
South Bend Chamber Singers / Nancy Menk (South Bend, IN)

I. April Rain Song
From Age to Age / Peter Durow (Anoka, MN)
Lesbian and Gay Chorus of Washington D.C. / C Paul Heins (Washington, DC)
Oriana Choir / Dominic Peckham. Bir Miftuħ International Music Festival (Gudja, MALTA)
Oriana Choir / Dominic Peckham. Sammy Ofer Gallery, Cutty Sark, Greenwich (London, ENGLAND)
Southern Nazarene University Chorale / Brent Ballweg (Okalahoma City, OK)
Festival Choir of Madison / Bryson Mortenson (Madison, WI)
VocalEssence / Philip Brunelle. Annual Witness Concert (Minneapolis, MN)

II. when faces called flowers float out of the ground
College Hill Singers / G Roberts Kolb (Clinton, NY)
Minnesota Oratorio Society / George Chu (St. Paul, MN)

III. Spring Grass
Premiere: Festival Choir of Madison / Eric Townell (Madison, WI)
CoroAllegro / Jeffrey Dokken (Wilmington, DE)

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Basic Genres: 
Choral
Choral Genres: 
Adult Mixed
Themes: 
Dance

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