Performed December 9, 2023; James Knox Sutterfield, conductor.
Arise, my beloved, my fair one, and come away;
Arise! Flowers appear on the earth. Arise!
For lo the winter is past, Flowers appear on the earth,
The time of singing is here. The voice of the dove is heard in our land.
As an expression of indomitable hope, we present Adolphus Hailstork’s Arise My Beloved. Having grown up as a chorister at All Saints Cathedral in Albany, Hailstork describes himself as a “cultural hybrid” of predominantly white, Eurocentric music education and Black cultural and musical heritage. With text from the Song of Songs, this piece is bursting with complex, rhythmic vitality, exclaiming with delight that “lo, the winter is past,” and “flowers appear upon the earth.”