Aaron Copland - Lark

 SC Governor's School Cantus Chamber Choir directed by Dr. David Rhyne. Thomas Dickinson, baritone.

It's interesting that the members of the chorus are performing from memory and the baritone soloist is using the music.  It's a very good performance, especially for a school chorus.  They're very good.

I'm going to go through the lesser known music of Aaron Copland for a while.  He wrote a lot more than Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid, Rodeo and Fanfare for the Common Man. I've found lots of things on Youtube I never heard before .    It's interesting to hear some of Copland's typical composing methods without his typical orchestration methods.   This makes me wish he'd composed more choral music,

Update:  Actually, the timing is an indulgence in nostalgia for me because it was about this time that I started learning the Copland Violin Sonata because I was asked to accompany someone the following spring.   I loved it and it has been one of my favorite pieces of music, ever since.   I was supposed to play his arrangement of it for clarinet, though I didn't like it as well because the lowering of the piano part by a Major 3rd makes it a lot harder to keep it from sounding muddy.  It can be played effectively but that's not how it's usually done.  I far prefer the original.

Charles Neidich, clarinet
Eunjung Kang, piano

Niedich's playing is extremely beautiful, in some ways some passages sound, perhaps, even better on the clarinet than on the violin.  Kang's playing of the piano is the best I've ever heard in this arrangement.