Shapey: Radical Traditionalism / Ny Music Ensemble, Et Al CD

Anne Morrow Lindbergh's inspirational book, Gift from the Sea, is the source for the text for Gifts from the Sea. Bella Voce has commissioned Walker to compose a cantata, which is titled Lessons From The Sea, based upon this beloved book. In this final song from the cantata, sounds of the sea can be heard throughout the rolling accompaniment of the piano, and the voices sing of the lessons that the sea can teach -- patience and faith. Accompanist for this selection - Xiudan Lin.

The text for Let Evening Come is a poem by a former New Hampshire poet laureate -- Jane Kenyon (1947-95). In her comments about this piece, Walker writes that this poem 'speaks of the peace and comfort of evening!. The opening, four note motive in the piano accompaniment might be heard as church bells tolling the coming of nightfall.

' This piece evokes a quiet sense of dusk moving across the farmland in the evening.

Six Songs for Women's VoicesWalker's Songs for Women's Voices include six original songs with texts by American poet May Swenson (1913-1989), who published over 450 poems in her lifetime. As Walker states in the music, the poems she has selected 'address a wide variety of topics -- from feminism to God to romance to death -- yet they speak with one voice, one style and one life-affirming philosophy.

' Women Should Be Pedestals is a 'tongue-in-cheek' commentary on relationships between men and women. Mornings Innocent is a lyrical song of young love. The Name Is Changeless describes one's search for God first with a hushed, prayer-like chant that evolves into an active interplay of voices and then ultimately ends with a quiet, reflective statement of 'God.

' In the introduction of Love Is a Rain of Diamonds, the piano creates the sound of a delicate rainfall. In lush harmonies, the voices sing of love that is mature and fulfilling. In Autumn begins with a hauntingly lovely duet that tells of preparation for the coming of autumn (the end of life.

) Walker creates the impression of the sound of 'water over stones' and other sounds of nature with the voices and piano. This reflective piece ends with notes that meander upward on the words 'let birds be flying.

' I Will Be Earth is a song of the passionate and 'radiant' love of two people -- both strong individuals yet intertwined.

I Thank You God is one of Gwyneth Walker's award-winning compositions. In 1999, the American Choral Director's Association selected her for the prestigious Raymond W. Brock Memorial Commission. For an inspiring text, Walker turned to the work of American poet E.E. Cummings (1894-1962) and selected his poem 'I Thank You God for most this amazing [day]' This poem was first presented at Harvard -- his alma mater -- in 1952. His poetry, famous for its unusual punctuation, syntax and meter, was quite popular. At the time of his death, Cummings was the second most widely read poet in the U.S. after Robert Frost. Walker describes her piece, I Thank You God, as a song of praise. She states, 'A piano introduction marked 'slowly unfolding, with wonderment,' spans the broad range of the keyboard, as if expressing the breadth of space and life. The chorus enters, offering thanks to God!.

' At the end, the piece builds to a final ecstatic restatement of the title phrase.