Navona Records releases I Carry Your Heart, an emotional and beautifully performed choral album by the University of South Dakota Chamber Singers. The pieces are diverse, taking traditional songs from around the globe and presenting them in a new form...

I Carry Your Heart commences with the Rhodesian miners' song 'Tshotsholoza', an upbeat encouragement to carry on despite challenges. Similar in tone and spirit is 'Muie Rendera', a vibrant folk song from Northeastern Brazil.

Traditional Swedish dancing song 'Och jungfrun hon går i ringen' is just as cheerful and even festive. 'Dwijavanthi' is a soulful Indian raga, and 'Dirshu Adonai' (Seek the Lord and His Strength) is a slow meditation sung in Hebrew.

Christian spirituality is also tackled: from psalm text 'Sicut Cervus', composed by the Chamber Singers’ effective composer-in-residence Jonny Priano, to two different renditions of 'The Lord's Prayer', once in Afrikaans ('Die Onse Vader') and once in the Russian Orthodox liturgical tradition ('Otche Nash').

With 'Sit Down Servant', 'Ain't That-a Rockin'', and 'Keep Your Lamps', the album also features several African-American Spirituals, performed with tremendous fervour and sensitivity.

There are two pieces of choral compositions by young composers: the tender 'Jenny', by Nick Myers (b. 1987), and 'I Carry Your Heart', an E. E. Cummings poem sympathetically set to music by Connor Koppin (b. 1991).

Frank Ticheli's unsettlingly beautiful work 'There Will Be Rest', based on a poem by underrated American poet Sara Teasdale, lingeringly rounds out the album.

Everyone will have their favourites here. Personally, of these 18 tracks (1 hr, 12 min, 54 sec) I thoroughly enjoyed 'Sit Down Servant'; 'I Carry Your Heart'; 'Jenny'; 'Otche Nash'; and 'There Will Be Rest'.

On a side note, 'Sicut Cervus' is very similar to Handel's 'Chaconne in C Major' (which many believe was also the inspiration behind the 1983 song 'Flashdance... What a Feeling' from the movie Flashdance.

Overall, a beautiful mix of gorgeous choral works.

Track listing:

arr. Jeffery Ames
01 - Tshotsholoza
Justin Boulware (soloist), Hannah Lambertz (percussion)

Zander Fick
02 - Die Onse Vader

arr. C.A. Pinto Fonseca
03 - Muie Rendera

Kenneth Lampl & Kirsten Lampl
04 - Dirshu Adonai
quartet Elizabeth Wensmann, Katie Zimmer, Seth Brick, & Kevin Phillips

arr. Stacey Gibbs
05 - Sit Down Servant

arr. Hugo Alfén
06 - Och Jungfrun Hon Gar I Ringen

Connor Koppin
07 - I Carry Your Heart

Jonny Priano
08 - Lullaby

arr. Stacey Gibbs
09 - Ain’t That-a Rockin’

Jonny Priano
10 - Sicut Cervus

arr. Ethan Sperry
11 - Dwijavanthi

arr. André Thomas
12 - Keep Your Lamps
Max Whitehead (percussion)

Nick Myers
13 - Jenny

arr. Richard Bjella
14 - Idumea
Marty Balmer & Alexa Worley (violin)

Jonny Priano
15 - Remember
Elizabeth Wensmann (soloist)

Joshua Shank
16 - David’s Lamentation

Alexander Gretchaninoff
17 - Otche Nash

Frank Ticheli
18 - There Will Be Rest

10

Darren Rea