AMERICAN HARMONY explores the riches of one of America’s earliest repertoires: the New England Hymn.  In eighteenth-century New England, many small towns often had their own proprietary hymn books, full of new and familiar music based on popular folk melodies and fiddle tunes, with a homegrown style of counterpoint. Emerging out of the founding decades of the Republic, this repertoire serves as a reminder of the nation's earliest ideals. Driven by fervent, full-throated music-making, these devotional hymns are

 

“suggestive of the strife, the commotion, the battle cries of a transitional period of society, struggling onward toward dimly seen ideals of people and order.” (Harriett Beecher Stowe, as quoted in Eriksen 2015)

 

There is a long tradition of using this music to look back to our past while also looking to the future.  A new work commissioned for this program from Celeste Oram will connect present, futures and pasts through the framework of a short radio program, considering never-ending endings, mortality, and the quest for a home and a better land.  

 

Connecting with some of the best singers from the American early music and ‘shape note’ singing traditions, Tim Eriksen  and John Taylor Ward lead this program that brings this special repertoire into the 21st century - highlighting recent developments in performance practice, historical instruments, and the time-honored tradition of making new from the old.

 

“like that same ocean aroused by stormy winds, when deep calleth unto deep in tempestuous confusion, out of which at last is evolved union and harmony”

Stowe, 1878