James E. Clemens

Composer

Voices of the Lakes
A Choral Fantasy for Youth Choir, for treble voices, piano, string quartet, loon whistle,
                rainstick, and wind chimes - Plymouth, New Hampshire (2000)

A Choral Fantasy for Youth Choir

Notes on the Composition

Voices of the Lakes was composed for the Friends of the Arts Youth Choir, made up of children from in and around Plymouth, New Hampshire. The piece has several sections and includes several different instruments: piano, two violins, viola, cello, loon whistle, rainstick, and wind chimes. (To see an outline of the piece, with texts, click here.)

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Continental

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     Tidelands of

           Georgetown

• Notes

• Overview

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• Kayaking Photo

     Voices of the

           Lakes

• Introduction

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• Outline

• PBS Page

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The piece begins with the call of a loon. I searched for a good loon whistle, since I don't want to use any recordings during the piece. It took me three tries (I bought two whistles that don't sound good), but I finally found a handmade ceramic whistle that sounds almost like a real loon.

As I mentioned before, I sometimes like to use parts of other tunes in my own music. In a book from the Plymouth Historical Society, I found out that Lowell Mason came to Plymouth over a century ago to conduct "county sings." These singing festivals were important community events. In the string interlude of Voices I made use of one of Lowell Mason's hymn tunes called OLIVET.

Sometimes when I compose I like to include parts of other music from different times and places. I found a good tune in a book called The Christian Harmony, originally published in 1805 in Exeter, New Hampshire. I found out about this book from Joel Cohen, the director of The Boston Camerata, a group that records a lot of early American music. Since I couldn't find a copy anywhere, I telephoned Dr. Mary Oyer, one of my music professors from college, to see if she knew of any used bookstores where I could buy it. As it turned out, she owned a copy of the book, and later that same day she called me back to say she was going to give it to me!

"The Loon Dances," the opening movement of Voices, makes use of a rainstick, which is made of a dried piece of cactus with tiny pebbles inside. Cactus needles are pressed into the cactus so that when you turn the rainstick upside down the pebbles fall through the needles, making the sound of rain.

One of the pieces, "Song of Wind and Tree," includes a part for wind chimes. The sound of the wind chimes adds to the mystical quality of the words.

Part of the piece is about the Old Man of the Mountain. I used two poems about the Old Man (you can read them here). I also wrote a musical theme to signify the five ledges of stone that make up the Old Man's face--this theme appears throughout the piece. [A sad note: the Old Man fell apart on May 3, 2003.]