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SSA (SA) winter songsDate: May 31, 2013 by Jo Prosser  Views: 697
Hi there,
We are a small ladies (16 -20 members) choir with a very wide range of ability from the UK. We range in age from 40-80+ years. We are looking for a set list for a winter/christmas concert in mid-December. The "old hands" know much of our Christmas stuff by heart and that can be tricky for newer folk. In addition, we want to shake things up a bit by having a less Christmasy feel to the concert so we can start learning songs earlier as our musical director won't do anything festive before Mid-October!
I am basically after some winter-themed, secular songs, in two or three parts, a bit of a solo in one or two of them is fine and am stuck for ideas! We have a wide range of abilites so they need to be medium to easy really. Our musical director tends to do the same stuff over and over but will happily take suggestions from members. A slightly extended work would also be fine too. We sing all sorts of works, from Madrigals to Fields of Gold so we are flexible in terms of stlye. We are usually accompianed by piano. I can't tell you how grateful I would be for your ideas. :)
Thank you!
Lee Kesselman on May 31, 2013 4:44pm
You might check out my arrangment of AULD LANG SYNE (published by Boosey & Hawkes) -- treble voices and piano.
Lee Kesselman
Applauded by an audience of 1
on June 1, 2013 3:52am
F you send me a snail mail address, I will happily send you a set of samples of my ssa music, I am based in the uk so I can get these to you easily
Tim knight
on June 1, 2013 4:12am
The Snow, by Edward Elgar, can be done with or without a violin duo and piano accompaniment. Gorgeous!
on June 1, 2013 4:23am
Two treble works of mine might be of interest:
1. 's no wonder 4 min. (Three part treble) Boosey & Hawkes (CME - M051474844)
2. Winter’s Blanket (1990) 2.5 min. (SSAA acappella; optional piano part) Cypress Choral Music (CP1173)
I'd be happy to send audio and/or score samples.
Leonard Enns
on June 1, 2013 4:47am
Hello
I am the MD of an SATB Community choir in Australia age range about the same as yours. My folk love to sing Christmas Kum BA YA by Jay Althouse ( Alfred) in 2 or 3 parts
Also 3 English Carols arr. Donald Moore ( Alfred) its available 2 or 3 part
We also like Sally De ford’s music its available free online at http://www.defordmusic.com some lovely arrangements here
good luck
Joy Porter
on June 1, 2013 5:02am
LAND OF CRYSTAL DREAMS, a secular winter carol I composed to words by Erica L. Hoffman, is now available for SSAA chorus. The original version for SATB chorus and optional percussion (2 players, glockenspiel and vibraphone) was published in 2004 by ECS Publishing (score = catalog no. 6166, parts = catalog no. 6167). The two newly arranged versions also include optional percussion parts. The catalog numbers for the new arrangement are as follows: SSAA score = 7937, parts for SSAA version = 7938. ECS Publishing's distributor is Canticle Distributing. If you prefer licensed PDFs at reduced cost you may get those directly from the publisher. Thank you for your time and attention.
Stanley M. Hoffman, Ph.D. http://www.choralnet.org/view/user/12190 http://www.stanleymhoffman.com http://www.ecspublishing.com http://www.morningstarmusic.com/ecshome.cfm
on June 1, 2013 5:17am
Hi,
I'm from a mixed a cappella choir in the North of Germany (Baltic Sea coast), and we have the selfsame repertoire issues as you (cooking the same stew all over, old members getting bored, new members overstressed due to rehearsal speed). Maybe we can trade some ideas? During the summer break I always try to carry on without the conductor (laywoman that I am), and it is mostly the women that turn up. So I'd be grateful also for some general (SA/SSA/SAA/SSAA) recommendations from you for easy to medium songs. We do everything from the 15th to the 21st century, but no gospels, pop, swing. Sometimes we try some jazzy harmonies as in "somebody loves me", "tea for two" or "let's do it", but have to work very hard to get the feeling right.
For Christmas, we are also always on the lookout for new ideas. As our conductor hates "mainstream", he is a little hard to convince with regard to English carols, but on the whole we have a large range of international Christmas songs (French, Polish, Finnish, Italian, American, Spanisch, South American, Swedish, etc.). Unfortunately, most of these songs are not available for women's choir.
You might want to try the German publisher Helbling (I am not in any way associated and will not get any money from my recommendation!). They also have a range of English songs, and maybe you are not afraid of trying something in a foreign language?
The good thing about this publisher is that he has hearing samples for almost all songs on his website. Drawback is that there is a minimum order quantity for most (apart from the songbooks).
I did a quick browse there. Check out (all with English text):
http://chor.helbling-verlag.de/?pagename=product&product=HCCS6103 (as a neutral opener)
http://chor.helbling-verlag.de/?pagename=product&product=HCCS5812 (arrangement by the bassist of the "Flying Pickets")
http://chor.helbling-verlag.de/?pagename=product&product=HCCS5225 (with English text, based on a poem by the German Romantic poet Rainer Maria Rilke). It is about the wind driving the snowflakes in the winter forest)
http://chor.helbling-verlag.de/?pagename=product&product=HCCS5871 (with English text)
Please feel free to ask for help with the German descriptions.
Our conductor has also done some very nice arrangements of his own. I'll ask him if I may pass them on.
And did you already check CPDL?
Hope this helps, Dietlinde Michel-Schwarz
on June 1, 2013 6:36am
"Winter Song" by Sara Bareilles ( pop artist) can be lovely for women's groups- adding or taking away as much as you like of the accompanying vocals to the melody line. Instantly downloadable sheet music avail at musicnotes.com
on June 1, 2013 6:42am
I have a work for SSA called "Winter Stars." Have a llok & listen here: http://www.richcampbell.us/composer.htm
-Rich
on June 1, 2013 12:42pm
Dear Jo,
Check out www.elektra.ca and click on Repertoire Resources. Then choose "Collections" and there is a "Christmas" one. Of all those pieces, most of which are sacred, and for a group of varying abilities, I would suggest the following, These are not all secular but might introduce something new for you:
"If You Would Hear the Angels Sing" by Stephen Smith - all about getting ready for Christmas
"The Huron Carol" arr. Ed Henderson - big piano part
"Joys Seven" arranged by James Laster
"Kalanta of the New Year" arr. Malcolm Dalglish
"Night of Silence" by Daniel Kantor
"Prayer for Peace" by Abbie Betinis
"Still, Still, Still" arr. Ken Berg (with flute and piano)
"Vesi Vasyy Lumen Alle" Trad Finnish arr. Harri Wessman (also with flute)
"Yorkshire Wassail" arr. Stephen Smith
Good luck!
Morna Edmundson, Artistic Director
Elektra Women's Choir
on June 1, 2013 12:44pm
There is also Vincent Percishetti's "Winter Cantata (Cantata No. 2)," Op. 97 for Women's Chorus, Flute, and Marimba. It's in twelve short movements, most under two minutes, totalling about 18 minutes or so. If it's too much to take on the entire work, you might be able to do a selection of the movements. The text is all in English, but is based on Japanese poems, mostly haiku dealing with wintry themes. I'm not sure what the scoring is for the voices and how much divisi is used. Seems to me from listening to the work again that some of the movements would be at the medium difficulty level you mentioned above. These are very effective and evocative pieces and a major work by a major American composer.
Happy searching!
John
Applauded by an audience of 1
on June 1, 2013 5:27pm
(Well, I meant to offer one of my works earlier, but appear to have clicked the wrong button.)
I recently finished an SSA accomp. setting of Amy Lowell's "A Winter Ride". It's short (2:00) and not too difficult, with a very brief S1 divisi that really only needs a few voices. The text is a wonderful declaration of vigor and vitality.
A review copy is available at http://www.wardsattic.com/music as well as a computer MP3 realization. I can provide inexpensive print permissions via email. JWPepper has print copies available, but I don't know whether that's a good solution in the UK.
Best regards,
John Ward (now clicking Submit instead of Preview)
on June 2, 2013 12:43am
Check out "First Snow" from Oxford University Press on my website, where you can see much of the score and hear a recording.
There are also a variety of performances on YouTube.
Reg Unterseher
on June 2, 2013 9:33am
My piece "Frozen In" sets a wintry text by contemporary poet Annie Finch and is scored for SSA chorus, violin & piano. A recording and program notes are up here: http://daletrumbore.com/Composer/frozen.html
Good luck with your programming!
Dale
on June 2, 2013 9:49am
Jo,
This is an ideal question for a database like Musica ( http://www.musicanet.org )
If you go there and just ask for "winter" in the "Keywords or Word of Title" field, in the quick search form appearing in the homepage, you will get about 1600 answers.
But your questions has other conditions :
secular : add this word after winter, and you will "only" have 900 answers.
To go further, try the "More crteria" search form, and to the previous 2 criteria, add "women" in the field "Type ofchoir", and "2-3" in the field "Number of voices". Now you will "only" have 115 answers to your request, that you can visit in details as you wish.
You can of course continue to precise your search by adding additional criteria like the language (for instance "English"), the duration (for instance "2-5"), etc...
Have fun
Jean
on June 2, 2013 12:10pm
You've gotten many good responses already, so I apologize if you feel overloaded with "choose me, choose me" but, here goes:
My setting of Tennyson's "O Swallow Swallow" has been pretty popular with women's choruses, and in fact is due for a reprint sometime soon, maybe a revision .. it's a few years old, and is not part of my recent quest for "writing in order to be sung in perfect tuning". But it does have a strong winter hint, with the swallow flying south to convey a love message. And winter, for many of us, applies to the length of life (you mention your chorus's age range in the original post).
William Copper
www.hartenshield.com/o_swallow_swallow.html
on June 3, 2013 9:56am
Crumbs there is loads of material out there, I wasn't looking in the right place. I especially love Elgar's The Snow, Winter Song would be appropriate for us I think and a couple of others that I will be in touch with soon.
Brilliant, thank you all so much, loads to be getting on with.
on June 4, 2013 9:41am
I especially recommend taking a look at Ippolitov-Ivanov's SSA works; they're absolutely gorgeous.
You can hear sound files of these pieces as well as see a PDF sample.
Take care!
Nazo Zakkak
Assistant to the President
www.musicarussica.com
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