Rising – Ešenvalds, Earth Teach Me Quiet

Ēriks Ešenvalds – Earth Teach Me Quiet

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Sunrise, Friday April 3

Earth teach me caring–as mothers nurture their young.

We continue to be amazed at how context so dramatically affects our perception - how we receive things on a given day, a certain hour, at a particular place. It's so natural to find new relevance in familiar words, and in familiar music, when our life circumstances have changed.

This is certainly true of Earth Teach Me Quiet, Ēriks Ešenvalds' invocation to the earth, a study in texture and color in which a murmuring marimba and tuned water glasses miraculously synthesize with our voices into a unified whole. The Ute prayer on which it is based is a study in our humanness, told through metaphors of the natural world.  

Earth teach me acceptance–as the leaves that die each fall.
Earth teach me renewal–as the seed that rises in the spring.

We've sung a lot of Ēriks' music and he has written a number of works for us. We love singing it because it is so extraordinarily idiomatic to vocalists - each part feels like a glove of perfect fit, lying in a place in our voice that invites both individual expressivity, and choral unity. Community of selves. Music in which we can both give and receive simultaneously.  

Earth teach me humility–as blossoms are humble with beginning.

Words for our times? Seems like it from where we stand.

We'll be back Monday. With saxophones!

Be well...with the courage of the "tree that stands alone."

– The Whole Team @ The Crossing

Earth Teach Me Quiet

music by Eriks Esenvalds

words from a Ute (North America) prayer

recorded June 11, 2017 at the IceBox at CraneArts

audio by Paul Vazquez of Digital Mission Audio Services

with Ted Babcock, marimba

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Earth teach me quiet – as the grasses are still with light.
Earth teach me suffering – as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility – as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring – as mothers nurture their young.
Earth teach me courage – as the tree that stands alone.
Earth teach me limitation – as the ant that crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom – as the eagle that soars in the sky.
Earth teach me acceptance – as the leaves that die each fall.
Earth teach me renewal – as the seed that rises in the spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself – as the melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness – as dry fields weep with rain.