A Light Exists in Spring

You Are The New Day

Words and music by John David
Arranged by Peter Knight
Conducted by Lucy Neary

Text:

You are the new day

I will love you more than me

And more than yesterday

If you can but prove to me

You are the new day

Send the sun in time for dawn

Let the birds all hail the morning

Love of life will urge me say

You are the new day

When I lay me down at night

Knowing we must pay

Thoughts occur that this night might

Stay yesterday

Thoughts that we as humans small

Could slow worlds and end it all

Lie around me where they fall

Before the new day

One more day when time is running out

For everyone

Like a breath I knew would come I reach for

The new day

Hope is my philosophy

Just needs days in which to be

Love of life means hope for me

Borne on a new day

You are the new day

Now Is the Month of Maying

Words and music by Thomas Morley
Conducted by Gerry Brenes

Text:

Now is the month of maying

When merry lads are playing

Fa la la la la

Each with his bonny lass

Upon the greeny grass

Fa la la la la

The Spring, clad all in gladness

Doth laugh at Winter's sadness

Fa la la la la

And to the bagpipe's sound,
The nymphs tread out their ground

Fa la la la la

Fie then! why sit we musing

Youth's sweet delight refusing?

Fa la la la la

Say, dainty nymphs, and speak

Shall we play barley break?

Fa la la la la

Lullaby, My Sweet Little Baby

William Byrd
Text, anonymous
Conducted by Tom George

Text:
Lulla, lullaby, my sweet little baby.
What meanest thou to cry?
Lulla, lullaby, my sweet little baby.

A Light Exists in Spring

Gerry Brenes*
Words by Emily Dickinson
Conducted by Gerry Brenes

Text:
A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period —
When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to me.

Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay —

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.

Out Beyond

Kristin Gordon*
For Thomas
Words by Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
Conducted by Kristin Gordon

Text:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
Doesn't make any sense.

Out beyond ideas, there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
I will meet you there.

O Schöne Nacht

Johannes Brahms
Words by Georg Friederich Daumer

Translation:
O Lovely Night!

In the sky, magically, the moon shines in all its splendor;
around it, the pleasant company of little stars. 

The dew glistens brightly on the green stem;
in the lilac bush, the nightingale sings lustily;
The youth steals away quietly to his love.

O lovely night!
-translation by Paine/Jeffers

O du stille Zeit

Simon Wawer
Words by Joseph von Eichendorff
Melody by Cesar Bresgen
Conducted by Lucy Neary

Translation:
O you calm time,

Come, ever as we thought

far over the mountains,

over the mountains wide

Good night!

In the loneliness

it rustles us gently,

over the mountains wide

over the mountains far

good night!

All Seasons Shall Be Sweet

Tom George*
Words by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Conducted by Tom George

Text:
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

The Pasture

Randall Thompson
Words by Robert Frost
Conducted by Gerry Brenes

Text:
I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha'n't be gone long.—You come too.  

I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha'n't be gone long.—You come too.

My Spirit Sang All Day

Gerald Finzi
Words by Robert Bridges
Conducted by Tom George

Text:
My spirit sang all day
O my joy.
Nothing my tongue could say,
Only My joy!

My heart an echo caught
O my joy
And spake,
Tell me thy thought,
Hide not thy joy.

My eyes gan peer around,
O my joy
What beauty hast thou found?
Shew us thy joy.

My jealous ears grew whist;
O my joy
Music from heaven is't,
Sent for our joy?

She also came and heard;
O my joy,
What, said she, is this word?
What is thy joy?

And I replied,
O see, O my joy,
'Tis thee, I cried, 'tis thee:
Thou art my joy.

Thou Wilt Keep Him in Perfect Peace

Samuel S. Wesley
Words, Isaiah, chapter 26, verse 3
Conducted by Lucy Neary

Text:
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on thee
The darkness is no darkness with thee,
but the night is as clear as the day.
The darkness and the light to thee are both alike.
God is light and with him is no darkness at all.
Oh let my soul live and it shall praise thee.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory,
for evermore.

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on thee.

The Road Home

Stephen Paulus
Tune, Prospect, from Southern Harmony
Words by Michael Dennis Browne
Conducted by Lucy Neary

Text:
Tell me, where is the road
I can call my own,
That I left, that I lost
So long ago?
All these years I have wandered,
Oh when will I know
There’s a way, there’s a road
That will lead me home?

After wind, after rain,
When the dark is done,
As I wake from a dream
In the gold of day,
Through the air there’s a calling
From far away,
There’s a voice I can hear
That will lead me home.

Rise up, follow me,
Come away, is the call,
With the love in your heart
As the only song;
There is no such beauty
As where you belong;
Rise up, follow me,
I will lead you home.

Good Night, Dear Heart

Dan Forrest (ASCAP)
Words by Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
and Robert Richardson
Conducted by Tom George

Text:
Warm summer sun,
Shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind,
Blow softly here.
Green sod above,
Lie light, lie light.
Good night, dear heart,
Good night, good night.

*Denotes a composition by a Nocturne singer.