UMS Concert Program, December 12, 1980: The New Swingle Singers --

Season: 102nd
Concert: Thirty-first
Power Center For The Performing Arts Ann Arbor, Michigan

THE UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
The New Swingle Singers
WARD SWINGLE, Director
Olive Simpson, Nicole Tibbels, Sopranos
Lindsay John, Carol Canning, Contraltos
Ward Swingle, Alan Byers, Tenors
Lindsay Benson, SrMON Grant, Basses
Friday Evening, December 12, 1980, at 8:00
Power Center for the Performing Arts
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Christmas Program
Carol Medley............Traditional
Jingle bells
II est ne, le devin Enfant
Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen
Carol Medley............Traditional
God rest you, merry gentlemen
The first Nowell
Go tell it on the mountain
Christmas Song...........TormeWells
Organ Fugue, BWV 578...........Bach
Gavotte, BWV 1006............Bach
Rondo, K. 525 (Eine kleine Nachtmusik)......Mozart
Hymn to the Virgin...........Britten
The twelve days of Christmas........Traditional
Sonata, K. 13............Scarlatti
Clair de lune.............Debussy
Flight of the bumble-bee........Rimsky-Korsakov
INTERMISSION
102nd Season -Thirty-first Concert Tenth Annual Choice Series
Carol Medley............Traditional
Schedrifka Pastores a Belen O du frohliche
Carol Medley............Traditional
Les anges dans nos campagnes
O Tannenbaum
Bel astre que j'adore
White Christmas............Berlin
All the things you are........HammersteinKern
When I'm 64..........LennonMcCartney
It's all right with me............Porter
Carol Medley............Traditional
El Noi de la Mare Hajej, Nynej, Jezisku Canzone d'l Zampognari
Joy to the world..........WattsHandel
O little town of Bethlehem........BrooksRedner
O come, all ye faithful...........Wade
(The audience is invited to join in the singing of these carols.)
Carol Medley............Traditional
We three kings
The holly and the ivy
Jingle bells
EMI, CBS, RCA, DeccaLondon, and Vox Records.
About the Artists
The art of using the human voice to imitate instrumental sound is both universal and old. In Scotland, folk archivists call it Mouth Music; in New Orleans, it's known as Scat Singing, as practiced by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. In Paris in the 1960s, an American musician, Alabama-bom Ward Swingle, took that idea and applied it to the works of J. S. Bach. The resulting ensemble, The Swingle Singers, enjoyed world-wide popularity for more than a decade, both in concert and on best-selling record albums. In 1974, Mr. Swingle moved to England and formed a new group with an infinitely wider and more varied range of composers and styles. The success of The New Swingle Singers has led to tours of every European country. Israel, Mexico, Scandinavia, the Far East, North America, two tours of Australia and New Zealand, four television shows (including a "Live from the Sydney Opera House"), and eleven recordings. Using a sophisticated microphone technique in which soft sounds are sung closely into the microphone to suggest the intimacies of speech, the Singers have inspired prominent contemporary composers to write works for them--two are Jeremy Lubbock, jazz musician and composer, and Luciano Berio, whose "A-Ronne" as performed by the Singers was the subject of a highly-acclaimed Aquaries Special on London Weekend Television.
Ward Swingle graduated summa cum laude from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and studied piano under the celebrated Walter Gieseking in post-war France. His singers, all trained in the British choral tradition in their country's outstanding universities and music schools, were selected from more than eighty applicants.
Mr. Swingle and his original group of singers appeared in Ann Arbor in 1971, during the opening season of the Power Center for the Performing Arts.
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY
Burton Memorial Tower, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 Phone: 665-3717, 764-2538
The audience is invited to join in the singing of these carols:
Joy to the world
Joy to the world, the Lord is come, Let earth receive her King! Let every heart prepare Him room, And heav'n and nature sing!
Joy to the world, the Savior reigns,
Let men their songs employ,
While field and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy!
He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness
And wonders of His love.
0 little town of Bethlehem
0 little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting light.
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.
For Christ is born of Mary,
And gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wond'ring love.
0 morning stars together
Proclaim the holy birth,
And priases sing to God the King,
And peace to men on earth!
How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is giv'n!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His Heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in the world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still
The dear Christ enters in.
0 holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray!
Cast out our sin and enter in,
Be born to us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell.
0 come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Immanuel!
0 oome, all ye faithful
0 come, all ye faithful Joyful and triumphant, 0 come ye, 0 come ye To Bethlehem! Come and behold Him, Born the King of angels; 0 come, let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord!
Sing, choirs of angels, Sing in exultation, Sing, all ye citizens Of Heav'n above.' Glory to God, all Glory in the highest! 0 come, let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord!
Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, Born this holy morning, Jesus to Thee Be glory giv'n! Word of the Father Now in flesh appearing: 0 come, let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord!
Translations of Foreign Carols II est ne, le divin Enfant
He is born, the holy Child, play the oboe and bagpipes merrily!
He is born, the holy Child, sing we all of the Savior mild.
Through long ages of the past, prophets have foretold His coming;
Through long ages of the past; now the time has come at last!
Es i-st ein Eos' entsprungen
Lo, how a Rose e'er blooming, from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse's lineage coming, as men of old have sung.
It came, a flowr'et bright, amid the cold of winter, when half-spent was the night.
Pastores a Belen
The Lord to earth has come, appearing as a baby. He lies in Bethlehem, the blessed son
of Mary. 0 come, 0 come, 0 shepherds, run to see the holy Babe that brings us Heaven's peace!
Come carrying some nuts and some honey; offer them to Jesus to eat!
Hasten, hasten, haste to adore! Jesus is born, the Son of the Highest,
Jesus our King, forever more.
0 du frohlich
0 how joyfully, 0 how blessedly, comes the glory of Christmas time! To a world so lost in sin, Christ the Savior enters in. Praise Him, all ye Christians, praise Him ever more!
Les anges dans nos aampagnes
Angels o'er the fields were singing, singing hymns from Heav'n on high,
And the mountain echoes ringing, answered to their joyful cry: Gloria in excelsis Deo!
We will seek the happy village of His birth this holy day.
We will offer deepest homage as our hearts and voices say: Gloria in excelsis Deo!
0 Tannenbavm
0 Christmas tree, 0 Christmas tree, with faithful leaves unchanging; Not only green in summer's heat, but also winter's snow and sleet. 0 Christmas tree, 0 Christmas tree, your leaves will teach me also That hope and love and faithfulness are precious things I can possess.
El Not de la Mare
What shall we give to the Son of the Virgin What can we give that the Babe will enjoy First we shall give Him a tray full of raisins, then we shall offer sweet figs to the Boy. What shall we do if the figs are not ripened What shall we do if the figs are still green We shall not fret: if they're not ripe for Easter, on a Palm Sunday, ripe figs will be seen.
Hajej, Nynejj Jezisku
Jesus, Jesus, Baby dear, we will rock your cradle here.
We will rock You, gently slumber as we rock You.
Jesus, Jesus, do not fear, we who love You will be near.
Jesus, Jesus, darling One, gift of Heaven, Mary's Son,
We will rock You, rock You, rock You, gently slumber as we rock You,
Jesus, Jesus, do not fear, we who love You will be near.
Canzone d'l Zampognari
When Christ our Lord was born at Bethlehem afar,
Although 'twas night, there shone as bright as noon a star.
Never so brightly, never, so whitely, shone the stars as on that night!
The brightest of stars to the East was sent, to call the Wise Men from the Orient.