Our debut album.
Celebrate 25 years of choral magic brought to life by young New Yorkers.
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Director’s Note
To turn twenty-five is a momentous occasion, whether that be for an organization or a human person. It’s a milestone that requires celebration, community, and fulfillment. In our 25th year, we’ve taken the step of releasing our first album, YNYC Presents 25.
This album is a celebration of those who helped us recover after COVID lockdown, the community that have sustained us and grown with us, and of the voices of composers whose music has changed us. The recordings on this album are from the past four seasons, and I express my particular thanks to those who helped contribute to this massive project.
These recordings celebrate some of our closest composer friends, as well as those further outside of our immediate community whom we deeply respect. Collectively, they form a tapestry of the musical identity of YNYC at present, as well as where we continue to strive for.
We could not have done this without the expert guidance of Abbey Hendrix, YNYC Board Member and Executive Producer. It’s because of her that these recordings not only shine, but transcend.
The YNYC Artistic Team is the best in the business, and has supported and guided this process from the beginning. You guys are the best.
I also want to thank our Board of Directors, volunteers, Sara Huser for the incredible album artwork, and all alumni of YNYC who have helped us get to this point in our journey.
And now! This album is our gift to you, our beloved audience, supporters, and friends. Here’s to another wonderful 25 years of music, community, and more.
With gratitude,
Alex
Metropolis
Music by Matthew Lyon Hazzard
Text by Jonathan Talberg
Winning piece of the 2021-2022 Daniel Thompson Memorial Competition for Young Composers
Mixed Ensemble
Alex Canovas, conductor
Mike Gaertner, piano
“Will you pick me up or should I meet you there?”
Skyscrapers and tenements touching a lapis lazuli sky. Our train fights its way along the bridge, Water everywhere, towers and smokestacks,
Rattle, clank, fits and starts.
The ancient car rumbles and drops again.
I bounded out and ran up steps that climb forever. A blast of cold air and blaring horns hit me.
Backpacks and a violin cases, headphones, a magazine,
Grandma in a babushka, curious children, a boom-box, teenagers,
Tourists screaming with glee under buildings so tall you can’t see their crowns.
Cars and bars and starlit lounges, shows and raves and dipping underground. Neon and screens, marquees and dreams...
Some come to work, some come to play, and we’re definitely here to play.
You can see through the trees to the other side of the park, Spying glimpses of love. A couple snuggling on a bench,
Talking and plotting, planning and scheming amidst the lights.
They’re holding hands. A knowing glance.
Her eyes looking into his. A knee against a knee.
A hand that lingers.
It’s touch amidst all these towers that makes it bearable.
Twenty generations have come of age in this City of Strangers. Four-hundred years of songs sung mostly by long gone neighbors
It’s not wondering which stop to take to get off at Broadway that makes people want to live here. It’s searching for people who bring you alive that makes The City vibrate and thrive.
It’s love, the pure substance, pulling us back now and then,
Bringing us homeward, again and again.
[Cacophony of voices]
Flight
Music and Text by Craig Carnelia
Arranged by Ryan Murphy
YNYC Treble Ensemble
Alex Canovas, conductor
Rachel DeVore Fogarty, piano
Lara Lewison, violin
Camilla Caldwell, violin
Dudley Raine IV, viola
Iva Casián-Lakoš, cello
Pat Swoboda
Let me run through a field in the night,
let me lift from the ground ‘til my soul is in flight.
Let me sway like the shade of a tree,
let me swirl like a cloud in a storm on the sea.
Wish me on my way thru the dawning day.
I wanna flow, wanna rise, wanna spill,
wanna grow in a grove on the side of a hill.
I don't care if the train runs late,
if the checks don't clear, If the house blows down.
I'll be off where the weeds run wild,
where the seeds fall far from this earthbound town.
And I'll start to soar.
Watch me rain ‘til I pour.
I'll catch a ship that'll sail me astray,
get caught in a wind, I'll just have to obey
’til I’m flyin’ away…
Let me leave behind all the clouds in my mind.
I wanna wake without wondering why,
finding myself in a burst for the sky.
High!
I'll just roll.
Let me lose all control.
I wanna float like a wish in a well,
free as the sound of the sea in a shell.
I don't know, but maybe I'm just a fool.
I should keep to the ground.
I should stay where I'm at.
Maybe everyone has hunger like this,
and the hunger will pass.
But I can't think like that.
All I know is somewhere, thru a clearing,
there's a flickering of sunlight on a river long and wide,
and I have such a river inside.
Let me run through a field in the night,
let me lift from the ground ‘til my soul is in flight.
Let me sway like the shade of a tree,
let me swirl like a cloud in a storm on the sea.
Wish me on my way thru the dawning day.
I wanna flow, wanna rise, wanna spill,
wanna grow on the side of a hill,
wanna shift like a wave rollin’ on,
wanna drift from the path I've been traveling upon,
before I am gone.
Sierras from “From Wilderness”
Music by Jeffrey Derus
Text by Various
Previous Winner of the 2023-2024 Competition for Young Composers
Mixed Ensemble
Alex Canovas, conductor
Hannah Rubin, cello
Night stands in the valley.
Her head is bound with stars,
While Dawn, steals through the silent trees.
Behind the mountains
Morning shouts and sings
And dances upward.
"How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!
To behold this alone is worth the pain of any excursion a thousand times over."
Over me the wind swirls.
I have stood on your portal and I know.
You are further than this,
still further on another cliff.
This hidden lake is a sapphire cup.
An offering clearer than wine, Colder than tears.
The mountains hold it toward the sky in silence.
It’s strange about stars…
Music by Melissa Dunphy
Text by Lola Ridge
Treble Ensemble
Alex Canovas, conductor
It's strange about stars ...
You have to be still when they look at you.
They push your song inside of you with their song.
Their long silvery rays
sink into you and do not hurt.
It is good to feel them resting on you
like great white birds...
and their shining whiteness
doesn't burn like the sun —
it washes all over you
and makes you feel cleaner'n water.
When David Heard
Music by Norman Dinerstein
Text from II Samuel, 18:33
Mixed Ensemble
Alex Canovas, conductor
Megan Combs, soprano
When David heard that Absalom was slain he went up into his chamber over the gate and wept, my son, my son, O Absalom my son, would God I had died for thee!
Stars like goldfish
Music by Hilary Purrington
Text by Leonora Speyer
Treble Ensemble
Alex Canovas, conductor
Rachel DeVore Fogarty, piano
The stars are like gold-fish in a deep blue bowl,
Swimming round and round the centuries.
Sometimes one dies of the hot summer night;
I watch it falling—
Fading—
And I watch the others,
Floating in their blue bowl,
Eternally golden,
Immortally indifferent.
Meet Me for Noche Buena
Music by Saunder Choi
Text by Aileen Cassinetto
Mixed Ensemble
Alex Canovas, conductor
Jin-Hee Lee, soprano
(Pasko na naman!)
Follow the story of the paról
Haggled and hand-carried
Tarried, gloried and ferried
From Quiapo to San Francisco
Now hanging on my window
Follow the string of lights
We’ll sing carols tonight
Everything’s big and bright
A little Christmas charm
Greets you with open arms
(Pasko na naman!)
Meet me for Noche Buena
Where it’s not quite like home
But a different kind of warm
Meet me for Noche Buena
Where it’s merry at midnight
Gather and give thanks
Gather old friends new
We’ll countdown to midnight
Have some hot tsokolate
Bibingka and Queso de bola
At iba pa
We’ll open presents
Be children again for a moment
Making star lanterns
With bamboo and paper
To light our way back home
You’ll find me where the holidays
Are merriest, look for the paról
Brightest in darkest night
I’ll be singing my favorite
Christmas song. All I want is home.
Spring Shall Bloom
Music by Susan LaBarr
Text by Christina Rossetti
Treble Ensemble
Emily Crowe Sobotko, conductor
Rachel DeVore Fogarty, piano
It is over. What is over?
Nay, now much is over truly.
Harvest days we toiled to sow for;
Now the sheaves are gathered newly,
Now the wheat is garnered duly.
It is finished. What is finished?
Much is finished known or unknown:
Lives are finished; time diminished;
Was the fallow field left unsown?
Will these buds be always unblown?
It suffices. What suffices?
All suffices reckoned rightly:
Spring shall bloom where now the ice is,
Roses make the bramble sightly,
And the quickening sun shine brightly,
And the latter wind blow lightly,
And my garden teem with spices.
Let My Love Be Heard
Music by Jake Runestad
Text by Alfred Noyes
Previous winner of the 2013-2014 Daniel Thompson Memorial Competition for Young Composers
Singers from the Mixed & Treble Ensembles
Alex Canovas, conductor
Angels, where you soar
Up to God’s own light,
Take my own lost bird
On your hearts tonight;
And as grief once more
Mounts to heaven and sings,
Let my love be heard
Whispering in your wings.
Singers
Treble Ensemble
Kitty Baker, Shanti Boyle, Laura Boyman, Lindsay Brillson, Ashley Barad, Ryann Bieber, Sarah Caroline Billings, Josie Blatt, Kelsey Brush, Megan Buiocchi, Mae Burris-Wells, Lola Charles, Anike Cherry, Megan Combs, Soraya Dangor, Chaele Davis, Rebecca Delconte, Katey Dolezal, Irene Droney, Elliott Feder, Alexis Freitag, Chloe Golonka, Hailey Gordon, Deanna Goudelias, Lucy Hale, Ellen Heuer, Ashley Huntington, Sohana Islam, Tamani Jayasinghe, Jen Jordan, Melanie Kahl, Cayla Kass, Clara Kattrup, Heather Keyser, Alyssa Keyne, Allie Kurkjian, Jennifer Lambert, Dana Lane, Carol Leon, Rachel Lischin, Allysun Marshall, Anna Mazarakis, Lily McCausland, Emily Melnick, Hailey Moll, Catherine Moore, Shikha Nayar, Anna Teresa O'Keefe, Alanna Okun, Sophia Paredes, Sophia Parades, Carolina Pereira, Inge Pham-Swann, Olivia Piontek, Elena Price, Carmen Reinicke, Kathleen Ritter, Sophie Rogers, Sarah Rosenblatt, Saoirse Ryan, Megha Sawhney, Francesca Serraino, Anna Shelkin, Jennie Silber, Emily Sobotko, Emily Crowe Sobotko, Kathryn Squitieri, Izzy Taber, Isabella Tjan, Ashley Todd, Tacie VanLiew, Izzy Vargas, Sonya Vera, Elena Volchok, Cara Weiss, Amelia Wellers, Hannah Welles, Alyssa Wiegers, Kylia Williams, Olivia Williams, Kate Winmill, Stephanie Zamow, Melody Zhu
Mixed Ensemble
Kelly Adachi, Theo Akpinar, Steven Alexander, Pete Ayres, Audrey Balan, Drew Beatty, Charlotte Bennett, Natalie Bond, Kylie Branch, Andrew Brown, Dylan Brunett, Marissa Caraballo, Cosette Carlomusto, Vin Caruso, Sofie Christensen, Lily Coll, Olivia Constantino, Claire Crutchfield, Rebecca Czochor, Christina Dai, Alex Dempsey, October Donoghue, Justin Duckworth, Maddie Dummermuth, Max Fathauer, Henry Fellerhoff, Mike Gaertner, Richard Gary, Shea Gordon, Brian Graff, Rachel Greenspan, Emma Harris, Jackie Hauck, Brian Hnat, Anna Hollander, Sara Huser, Ted Jack, Kerry Johnson, Stephanie Jones, Erin Kintzing, Shannon Kingett, Allison Kinney, Youngbin Kim, Sara Kiter, Michael Landivar, John Larson, Jen Lee, Sean Leigh, Dylan Levine, Allen Li, Rafael Lippert, Amy Liu, Brian Logsdon, Rachel Lorando, Benjamin Maffa, Michelle Manis, Emily Mathios, Mandy Matthews, Lucia Miller, Michelle Morginstin, Rachel Newman, Oscar O'Rahilly, Grant Papastefan, Jimmy Paolini, Rhea Patil, Billy Pickett, Monica Raugei, Colston Reinhoff, Toni Rinaldi, Connor Robertson, Jessie Rubin, Casey Schidlovsky, Carly Schindler, Connor Sears, Julia Segal, Zach Silver, Kalyani Singh, Sophia Socarras, Maya Sposito, Ben Swanson, Leah Taub, Jameelah Taylor, Sarper Tutuncuoglu, Josh Turner, Grace Tyson, Jake Ullman, Neal Ulrich, Elizabeth Webster, Jack Wheatley, Jake Wild, Jackson Wildes, Mengfei Xu, Ryan Young
“Let My Love Be Heard” Singers
Laura Boyman, Kelsey Brush, Sofie Christensen, Lily Coll, Olivia Constantino, Emily Crowe Sobotko, Max Fathauer, Henry Fellerhoff, Richard Gary, Jackie Hauck, Sara Huser, Ted Jack, Youngbin Kim, Shannon Kingett, Carol Leon, Allen Li, Lily Liu, Brian Logsdon, Mandy Matthews, John Montroy, Catherine Moore, Oscar O'Rahilly, Jimmy Paolini, Toni Rinaldi, Connor Sears, Jennie Silber, Ben Swanson, Josh Turner, Jake Ullman, Jack Wheatley, Ryan Young
Production
Abbey Hendrix & Alex Canovas, executive producers
Mike Gaertner & Emily Crowe Sobotko, producers
David Merrill, live audio engineer
Stereophonic Mastering & Timothy Stollenwerk, mastering engineer
Special Thanks
Sara Huser, album artwork
Steph Jones, social media
The Church of St. Mary the Virgin, concert & recording venue
St. Paul’s Carroll Street (Brooklyn), recording venue
Mike Gaertner, Mixed Ensemble Principal Pianist
Emily Crowe Sobotko, Treble Ensemble Associate Conductor
Rachel DeVore Fogarty, Treble Ensemble Pianist
Justin Duckworth, Mixed Ensemble Associate Conductor
Pre-Order!
Limited edition first run of YNYC's new album on vinyl. Only 100 available.
Limited edition first run of YNYC's new album on CD. Only 50 available.