Description
Trees Need Not Walk the Earth is the 2013 Winner of the Young New Yorkers Chorus Competition for Young Composers, and was a singer and audience favorite. Powerful piano writing combined with a rhythmic marimba part and strong melody for the voices creates a striking addition to your program.
Performed by Santa Clara University Chamber Singers, Carlo Armijo, marimba; Dan Cromeenes, piano; Scot Hanna-Weir, conductor
Text
Trees need not walk the earth
For beauty or for bread;
Beauty will come to them
Where they stand.
Here among the children of the sap
Is no pride of ancestry:
A birch may wear no less the morning
Than an oak.
Here are no heirlooms
Save those of loveliness,
In which each tree
Is kingly in its heritage of grace.
Here is but beauty’s wisdom
In which all trees are wise.
Trees need not walk the earth
For beauty or for bread;
Beauty will come to them
In the rainbow –
The sunlight –
And the lilac-haunted rain;
And bread will come to them
As beauty came:
In the rainbow –
In the sunlight –
In the rain.
– David Rosenthal (from Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920 ~ Public Domain)
Composer Notes
If the choir is large, 2 rainsticks may be used. It is best if they are played by singers in the back row of the choir.