The Wind and Rain Premier

About The Wind and Rain (for womens choir)

This piece emerges from both Celtic roots and scientific data. The original folk song by the same name was brilliantly performed by Peggy Seeger. While the original text explores a murderous love triangle, the end of the song speaks of the transformation of our human bodies into a musical instrument that plays along with nature.

Composer’s Notes

Glenn’s adaptation focuses on that notion of our bodies becoming an instrument in nature’s music after death. To further explore this idea, the traditional melody is combined with a new, second melody that emerged from lake core sample data from New York State’s most pristine body of water, Wolf Lake in the central Adirondacks. These lake core samples, collected and studied by Paul Smith’s College climate scientist Dr. Curt Stager, tell the story of human interaction with the lake stretching back to the time of the Roman Empire in Europe.

This data, a collection of memory, shows how human impacts have long played a second melody to nature’s music. This piece weaves together the melodies of both humans and nature in a hauntingly joyous song.