Happy New Year! Today you get not just one new track, but a whole album AND a window into Windborne’s history. To read the full story of how Renewal contributed to Windborne’s formation, check out this post from last January, where we shared the Renewal album from 2008. You can download all the tracks for Renewal 2009 from this google folder and see the track list and liner notes below!
The short story: The Renewal Chorus was formed by a handful of alums of Village Harmony singing camps as a cooperative, director-less ensemble that would give us the chance to connect back to the wide variety of singing traditions we had all grown to love as teens. We were all in college at the time, so January break was a logical time for us to convene. Renewal toured in January from 2007-2012 with a slightly different configuration of singers every year, and it’s where Lynn, Will, and Lauren (who had been performing as Windborne for several years already) became friends with Jeremy. In 2013, when Renewal had “retired,” Windborne did a tour in that same January time slot and invited Jeremy along–the rest, as they say, is history!
In Windborne’s early years, our concert sets looked a lot more like the track list below, with more than half of our repertoire coming from different countries and cultures with traditions of harmony singing. As we have shifted our focus to more music of justice and social change, we have migrated away from some of these other traditions (so many songs, so little time!) but these various singing styles and sounds have had a profound impact on us over the years. You may hear echoes of Balkan rhythms or Georgian harmonies in our current arrangements, and that is a direct result of spending so much time steeped in these delightful songs.
If you’ve only recently discovered Windborne, some of the songs on this album might be a little surprising! Bulgarian, Bosnian, and Georgian folk songs in particular have a very different sound than a lot of Western music, but one of the reasons we are excited to share this album from Renewal is that it’s one of the best and most versatile ensembles we’ve sung with, and one that was committed to singing each style with as much respect and authenticity as we could muster.
If you are curious about any of the songs or traditions, please let us know in the comments! And if you want to sing more music like this, check out Village Harmony’s camp programs for teens and adults at VillageHarmony.org
THE RENEWAL CHORUS – 2009
1. Rachuli Alilo – Trad. Georgia, Racha region. The Alilo tradition is similar to Christmas Caroling or Wassailing and traditionally takes place on January 7th (Orthodox Christmas).
2. Newburgh – Tune: Amos Munson, 1798, Lyrics: Isaac Watts, 1719. American Shape Note song
3. Poland – Tune: Timothy Swan, 1785, Words: Isaac Watts, 1719, American Shape Note song
4. Delight – Tune: Simeon Coan, 1798, Words: Isaac Watts, American Shape Note song
5. Milost Mira – composed by Petur Dinev. A Bulgarian Orthodox liturgical piece
6. Vila moma – Bulgaria, Shop region, folk song arranged Bojan Nankov. A tongue-in-cheek song about courtship. It tells the story of a young woman who made a wreath of flowers and went to get water from a spring, then a wild and crazy youth came and stole her wreath.
7. Fanfarneta – Trad. France, Occitan language, based on the singing of Lo Còr de la Plana. A girl grieves for her lover who is about to be hanged.
8. Sjajna zvjezda – Trad. Bosnia. This is a village song sung by women out tending their sheep, calling from mountaintop to mountaintop. “Bright star in the sky and my flowers on the ground, where is my love tonight?”
9. Noches Noches – Trad. Bosnia, Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish) language. A traditional Ladino song from Sarajevo, Bosnia arranged by Laura Hassler, founder of Musicians Without Borders and artistic director of singing group, Vrouwvolk. “Beautiful nights are for falling in love, rolling in bed like fish in the sea. Three sisters talk with each other saying, ‘let’s enjoy our youth,’ ‘let’s enjoy our wedding day.’”
10. Megruli Nana, Trad. Georgia, Samegrelo region, Megruli language. Accompanied by Will Rowan on the Chonguri, a Georgian stringed instrument. Nanas are a genre of lullabies and healing songs. In Georgia it was believed that when one is sick it was because spirits within them were upset, so the sick people were pampered and calming songs were sung to calm the spirits and help sick children get to sleep.
11. Elesa – Trad. Georgia, Guria region. A work song for carving out a wine trough, which features two choirs passing the song back and forth, with Sarah Allard and Lynn Rowan doing Krimanchuli (Georgian yodeling).
12. Mirangula – Trad. Georgia, Svaneti region, Svan language. Featuring Nora Weatherby on the Changi, a Georgian harp, and Rosalie Elkinton on the bowed Ch’unir. The lyrics are an epic poem with many verses, a lament for Mirangula who goes off to war. This song is also a good example of a unique and old style of Georgian tuning from the remote mountainous region of Svaneti.
13. Ecce Quod Natura – Anonymous Christmas carol in Latin, from England 14-15th century. Sung by Mason Gohl, Adam Simon, and Julie Shapiro.
14. Expectation – Will Rowan, Text: Isaac Watts. Will wrote this modern Shape Note piece as he was approaching his college graduation.
15. How Long? – Don Jamison, Text: Francis Davison, from Psalm 13. Vermont composer Don Jamison was a dear friend to Renewal, and we sang many of his pieces throughout Renewal’s run. He wrote How Long? in 2006 as a response to the treatment of detainees in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.
16. Smear – Seth Houston, Text: Isaac Watts. Printed in the Northern Harmony songbook. Seth was one of our early music teachers and is a prolific composer! In the 90s, he was known for writing very wordy and complex contemporary Shape Note songs. The story goes that one group complained that his songs were too complicated and said he should write something simple, like the classic Shape Note song “Mear,” which is almost entirely whole notes and half notes, so he wrote this piece, which is rhythmically simple and harmonically delightful.
17. Home in the Sky – As sung by the Black jubilee gospel group the Wingman Quartet, transcribed by Luke Hoffman
18. Sister, Thou Art Mild and Lovely – From the singing of Addie Graham, Text: Samuel Francis Smith. Arranged by the women of Renewal, who pulled additional verses from the Sacred Harp.
19. Lesang magwala a cheche – Trad. South Africa, Sotho Language. Anti-Apartheid freedom song. It says, “Cowards to the back. Only we with hearts of stone will go forward.” In the spoken transition between the two sections the leader calls “Amandla!” (“Power!”), and the followers reply “Awetu” (“To the people”). The second part of the song says, “The young men are restless, they call for bazookas.” This popular anti apartheid song was sung at marches when protesters were often threatened by overwhelming government forces.
20. Nongqawuse – written by South African composer and choir leader Bongani Magatyana, in the Xhosa language. A song about the Xhosa prophet Nongqawuse whose prophecies led to the cattle-killing famine of 1856-7. Bongani leads choirs in South African and teaches all over the world, including at many Village Harmony camps, and you can support his work on Patreon here: patreon.com/bonganimagatyana
The Renewal Chorus 2009: Sarah Allard, Sarah Gibson, Nora Weatherby, Julie Shapiro, Suzanna Denison, Lynn Mahoney Rowan, Lauren Breunig, Rosalie Elkinton, Adam Simon, Wheaton Squier, Will Thomas Rowan, Luke Hoffman, Ben Aleshire, Mason Gohl, Jeremy Carter-Gordon
Either we didn’t take any good group photos that year or they have been lost to the mists of time, because this is literally the only one we could find (and this doesn’t even have everyone it it…)! Can you find all of baby Windborne? 🙂
Even if we don’t have a good photo of the 2009 tour, we do have this incredible piece of block print art made by Renewal member Ben Aleshire (who now works as a traveling street poet!)–all of us in Windborne have this print hanging on our walls to this day!
