Product Description
The Tree is a setting for unaccompanied SATB mixed choir of the poem by American transcendental poet Jones Very (1813 - 1880). The full text is below. Composed at the 2003 Oxford Summer Institutes at Lehigh, where it received a reading by the Princeton Singers under the direction of Steven Sametz. Premiered April 2, 2004, by the American University Chamber Singers under the direction of Daniel E. Abraham. Duration ca. 3 minutes. A "Back to School 2015" feature.
Since its 2004 premiere The Tree has had more than 30 performances in Washington, DC, Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, California, Oregon, Washington State, Canada and Australia.
In July 2010, an international panel of judges named The Tree as a finalist for the Seghizzi International Choral Festival held in Gorizia, Italy. In March 2012, The Tree was named a Silver Platter Repertoire Award Winner by the editor of the ChoralNet Composition Showcase. A recording by The Esoterics is available on CD.
Watch a performance on YouTube: http://youtu.be/_sSHM6pyOsE?list=PLC467B58A453D766A
THE TREE by Jones Very
I love thee when thy swelling buds appear,
And one by one their tender leaves unfold,
As if they knew that warmer suns were near,
Nor longer sought to hide from winter's cold;
And when with darker growth thy leaves are seen
To veil from view the early robin's nest,
I love to lie beneath thy waving screen,
With limbs by summer's heat and toil oppress'd;
And when the autumn winds have stript thee bare,
And round thee lies the smooth, untrodden snow,
When naught is thine that made thee once so fair,
I love to watch thy shadowy form below,
And through thy leafless arms to look above
On stars that brighter beam when most we need their love.
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