Pricing

Printed Score Only: $65
Printed Conductor Score, PDF Instrumental Parts, PDF Choral Scores*: $495
Printed Conductor Score, Printed Instrumental Parts, Printed Choral Scores**: $550+

*PDF Choral Scores includes a license to print up to 100 copies
**Printed Choral Scores are $3.80 each, with a minimum of 50 copies. 50 copies are built into this price. Add $3.80 for each additional copy needed.
 

Details

Grade 5 – Large Choir + Small Wind Ensemble
Year of Composition: 2023
Length: 14:00

INSTRUMENTATION

Note: Wind ensemble parts should not be doubled due to balance considerations with the choir.

Flute 1, 2
Oboe 1, 2
Bassoon 1, 2
Clarinet in Bb 1, 2
Bass Clarinet in Bb

Alto saxophone in Eb 1, 2
Tenor saxophone in Bb
Baritone saxophone in Eb

Trumpet in Bb 1, 2
Horn in F 1, 2
Trombone 1, 2, 3
Euphonium
Tuba

Timpani
Percussion 1: Glockenspiel, Bass Drum, Suspended Cymbal
Percussion 2: Vibraphone, Crash Cymbals
Percussion 3: Marimba, Crotales, Tam-Tam, Suspended Cymbal, Triangle
Percussion 4: Triangle, Bass Drum, Snare Drum, Chimes, Suspended Cymbal

Piano

SATB Choir*

*A large choir of 70+ singers is ideal. A choir that is smaller will struggle to balance effectively with the wind ensemble in the louder sections of the piece. It is possible to use a chamber choir (or portion of a large choir) for the quieter moments of the piece and have the full large choir sing only the loudest sections of the work.

Program Note

And the Cities Rise Like Dreams was commissioned by the University of Nevada, Reno in celebration of the university’s 150th anniversary. In April 2023, I visited the campus and spent time in the library’s special collections department, hoping to find inspiration for the piece, and in particular the text. Combing through hundreds of archival books over two days, I came across many fascinating materials from Nevada and other parts of the west. I ended up finding three poems in particular that really resonated with me and spoke to the grandeur and beauty of the western landscape. In thinking about these poems, I decided that perhaps the piece could tell a story of the American West’s landscape and its growth from a quiet wilderness to a bustling region.

The three poems, all published in the 1920s, are written by M. Genevieve Williams (her poem was written while a student at the University of Nevada, Reno in the late 1920s) Jack Sinclair (also a Nevada-based poet) and Clarence Eddy (a poet-prospector who was born in Oregon and lived much of his life in Idaho.)

To signify the growth and success of the west, I decided to use the metaphor of a sunrise. The beginning of the music (and the text) tells the story of a quiet and peaceful night. This quiet night symbolizes the early West, before the monumental rise of cities throughout the region. As the music progresses, it slowly builds as the light of day begins to break. By the fanfare-like conclusion of the work, the text and music have brought us fully into the light of day, the shining and successful present of the west.

About the text

The text for And the Cities Rise Like Dreams is a compilation of three poems from the 1920’s, all by poets that lived in the American West. The first poem, “Nevada Night” is used in its entirety at the beginning of the work, and the final stanza of the poem is used again at the conclusion of the work. Selected stanzas of the second and third poems (“Lights of the West” and “The Queen of the Purple Mist”) are used in the text.

Nevada Night – M. Genevieve Williams
Book of Nevada Poems
The Nevada Federation of Women’s Clubs
Reno Printing Company, Reno Nevada 1927 

A spell is cast upon your heart
By a clear and silvery moon,
That shines upon a desert land
Where night winds softly croon.

Silent stars gleam on her breast
Of sand so soft and white,
And changes every bush and twig
To unreal mystery of delight.

A coyote pauses on a crest,
The night birds softly call—
A campfire gleams on a lonely hill
And peace reigns over all.

When you behold this wonderland
In the dark that heralds morn,
Your heart goes out to the wind-swept space
And ‘tis then your soul is born.

Lights of the West – Jack Sinclair
Book of Nevada Poems
The Nevada Federation of Women’s Clubs
Reno Printing Company, Reno Nevada 1927
(selected stanza) 

Lights of the west, when at twilight you’re gleaming,
Out of the land where the wind softly steals;

Seek with your rays for the haunts of my dreaming,
Peace evermore, at your shrine I will kneel.

The Queen of the Purple Mist (A Ballad of the New Nevada) – Clarence Eddy
Ballads of Heaven and Hell
Western Printing Company, Salt Lake City, UT 1922
(selected stanzas)

Where mountains hold the morning gold
And gold is in the ground,
Where golden themes and golden schemes
And golden dreams abound.

Under the skies where the mountains rise,
Rugged and vast and old;
Under the skies of the West there lies,
the land of the lure of gold.

Upon the crest of the mighty West,
And fanned by the cooling breeze
That breathes and blows from the mountain snows
And the mighty western seas.
A goddess stands with beckoning hands
And calls her argosies.

She waves her hand across the land,
And the cities rise like dreams;
The golden queen of the purple sheen
In the land of golden schemes;
By mountains rolled in mists of gold
Where Heaven’s glory gleams.

The sun and moon go by,
And the cities rise like dreams.
Where golden treasures lie
Beneath the desert sky.

Nevada night – M. Genevieve Williams
(selected stanza)

Behold!*                                                                                              

When you behold this wonderland
In the fanfare of the morn,
Your heart goes out to the wind-swept space
And ‘tis then your soul is born.

When you behold this wonderland,
Your soul is born.
Behold! Behold! Behold!
This wonderland!

*The last two stanzas of text contain modifications and fragments of “Nevada Night.”