Author: Reginald Unterseher

Reginald Unterseher is Music Director and Composer-in-Residence at Shalom United Church of Christ, Richland, Washington. His works are published by Oxford University Press, Walton Music, and through NW Choral Publishing at www.reginaldunterseher.com.

On This Harvest Moon

Posted on by Reginald Unterseher

(coming soon)

Mixed chorus, divisi

On This Harvest Moon, by Brian Turner

What they don’t tell you about love
is how its waters deepen within us

over time, the sweetened well
blurring the stars when a loved one’s name

crosses the threshold of our lips,
how cool and empty our hands feel

when the fine tips of the brushes
dance on the skin of a drum.

What they don’t tell you about love
is how our bodies house the dead

until we breathe the last words
we carry within, a poem

given to the ether, transposed
into the silence of clouds, then

carried over the sunlit earth
where the rain delivers it

to the green tongues of plants,
the pink mouths of animals

large and small, the ground itself
softened and giving way

to the winding channels,
blades of grass curling

from the weight of it,
a lone ant drinking

from a droplet of water
full of moonlight and music,

the taste of salt on a lover’s skin.

Premieres March 24, 2023

This Light

Posted on by Reginald Unterseher

SSATB or SATB with Treble Choir, with piano and (opt. string quartet)

With music and words expressing determination to find a way forward after challenges, this piece reminds us that we “know what hope feels like inside,” and encourages us to move into the future “with purpose, with grace, the sun in my soul, golden light on my face.” It can be done with SSATB choirs, or a combined Treble and SATB choir, with piano and optional string quartet. Commissioned in celebration of Rainier Youth Choirs’ 15th Anniversary Season, Leora Schwitters, Founder and Artistic Director. Click here to learn more about poet Jordan Chaney.

purchase at musicspoke

this light

from the
mouth of the earth
like gold on fire

the sun speaks and
spills its secrets of life
of light

then sings them to me

I know what hope
feels like inside

a light in the spirit
a place not too distant

past shadows
and dimness

this light
I feel it

it shines
it shines
brighter
and brighter

waxing away
still making a way

sorrow became faith
woke up the next day
with purpose
with grace

the sun in my soul
golden light on my face

~Jordan Chaney
10 December 2021

The National Anthems Project

Posted on by Reginald Unterseher

The Star-Spangled Banner and O Canada
SSAA/TTBB, SSA

A simple but important opportunity for choirs to sing for audiences that often would not otherwise hear you is for sporting and other public gatherings where National Anthems are sung at the beginning of the event.

Here are arrangements of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and arrangements of “O Canada” in both English and French that you are welcome to freely use. O Canada has been updated to reflect the word change from June, 2016. The words “in all thy sons command” have been changed to “in all of us command.”

Email Me (don’t leave a reply below, I need an email message) with the specifics of your needs and I will be happy to send the scores. They are all designed to particularly be useful for school and community choral programs. They are straight ahead versions, easy to learn, uncomplicated but rich. Assemblies, sporting events of many sorts, whenever the singing of National Anthems is called for, get your singers out there in front of the public! There are now also Three Part Treble Voices versions of both anthems designed for children’s voices without the low notes the 4-part version requires.

Quartets, octets, small groups or large, there are many ways to use these arrangements. The upper voices can sing it by themselves, the lower voices can sing it by themselves, and all parts can sing together, creating an easy 8 part arrangement. Additional ways to sing it are suggested in the score.

This arrangement is registered with ASCAP, so please list my name as arranger in any programs. If you make a video and post it on line, please also list my name as arranger and my web site as the source for the score.

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER

Full Score (Upper and/or Lower)

SSA Score

O CANADA

Full Score (Upper and/or Lower)

SSA Score

Atomic Soldiers

Posted on by Reginald Unterseher

SATB, flute, violin, viola, cello, bass

“Atomic Soldiers” sets the words of soldiers who were subjected to tests of nuclear weapon explosions in battleground situations, excerpted with the kind permission of the New York Times and Morgan Knibbe, filmmaker, from the documentary “The Atomic Soldiers” released in 2019. These soldiers were prevented from speaking about their experiences until the 1990’s, and could have been charged with treason for doing so before that. Musically, it revisits the opening descending figure of the Prologue, and this time it takes the form of a chaconne. The soldiers’ parts, rather than being given to an individual voice, are taken by sections of the chorus. In their interviews, the soldiers tell the stories one at a time, in a linear fashion, but when sung by the chorus, the lines can be re-constructed and layered upon each other as well.

Premiere performance, recorded inside the B Reactor.

Score options
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Sadiq

Posted on by Reginald Unterseher

SATB and piano, from “Here, Bullet“

The choral version of this piece from the song cycle for tenor, chorus, and piano. Heart-pounding, intense. “It is a condition of wisdom in the archer to be patient because when the arrow leaves the bow, it returns no more.” Sa’di

See the song cycle page for score image and more information.

Reginald Unterseher · “Here, Bullet” 3. Sadiq, Unterseher
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Text

Sadiq

It should make you shake and sweat,

nightmare you, strand you in a desert

of irrevocable desolation, the consequences

seared into the vein, no matter what adrenaline

feeds the muscle its courage, no matter

what god shines down on you, no matter

what crackling pain and anger

you carry in your fists, my friend,

it should break your heart to kill.

–Brian Turner

this morning

Posted on by Reginald Unterseher

SATB with piano

Composed for the Washington ACDA Summer Institute Commissioning Project, with a poem by Afrose Fatima Ahmed, this piece uses images of a bear coming out of hibernation and a conversation with a raven to explore societal changes, looking to the future with courage. “This morning the world cries out its song, I hope you opened your ears to hear it, too.” Click here to learn more about the poet.

purchase at musicspoke

this morning

I wake up and open my eyes,
not knowing what I will find.
stepping out onto the street,
the first step in a lifetime.

I’m a bear, skinny and starving,
leaving my cave after winter.
There are salmon in the ocean
inching closer, promising dinner.

This morning I opened my eyes
and the dandelion opened, too.
And the raven said, nice to see
you alive, we’ve really needed you.

When the fires were burning
and the people stayed home
or marched or denied, the airplanes
rested, and we roamed a free sky.

But you’re not a nuisance to us
winged ones, and you are not the cure.
But in the equation of the universe
you play an important figure.

This morning the day beckoned.
This morning I opened to the idea
of something new. This morning the
world cries out its song, I hope you opened
your ears to hear it, too.

~afrose fatima ahmed

Nuclear Dreams: an Oral History of the Hanford Site

Posted on by Reginald Unterseher

Mezzo and Baritone soloists, SATB Chorus, chamber orchestra

Nuclear Dreams: an Oral History of the Hanford Site is a concert-length work exploring the stories and night dreams of those who lived or worked on the land that became the site of the B Reactor, the first full production plutonium reactor in history, part of the Manhattan Project. Plutonium from the B Reactor was used for the Trinity test explosion and the bomb dropped on Nagasaki.

The piece is featured starting on page 44 of the linked article in the April 2020 Choral Journal “Singing in the Cathedral of the Nuclear Age” by Molly Holleran.

Here are some videos and the program from the premiere by the Mid-Columbia Mastersingers, Justin Raffa, conductor. More information can also be found on the Facebook event for the premiere.

Below is a video made from the audio recording on opening night of the piece “Atomic Soldiers.” Atomic Soldiers is now available to be purchased separately

Below is performance video of “Spoonful of Tank Waste,” recorded inside the reactor itself with a live audience.

Below is a performance video of “I Didn’t Know They Work Here,” also recorded inside the reactor with audience.

Below is a performance video of “Spring of Paradise/J. Robert Oppenheimer’s Gita (Reprise)”

Here is the program from the premiere which contains complete program notes, the libretto, and performer information.

For performance information, Email: reg@reginaldunterseher.com

A Little Song of Life

Posted on by Reginald Unterseher

Upper Voices, Lower Voices, or Mixed Voices with piano

“Glad that I live, am I!” This setting of Lizette Woodworth Reese’s poem is full of joy, hope, and positive energy, to lift up and inspire both your singers and audiences. A particularly effective piece for festivals and festival choirs. It is now available for Upper Voices, Lower Voices, and Mixed voices with Piano.

MIXED VOICES

UPPER VOICES

LOWER VOICES

Purchase at Musicspoke

PROGRAM NOTE

The energy, hope and positive energy in the poem is reinforced by the layered rhythms and syncopations in both the piano and voice parts. The poem is divided into three parts. The first part is an expression of the feeling of the joy of the natural world. The middle section explores in simple terms the cyclical nature of natural systems. When the musical material returns, it is both recognizable and developed a little more each time. The third section introduces the last lines of the poems as a mantra, repeated back and forth between two parts while a descant group soars above them.

A Little Song of Life

Glad that I live am I;
That the sky is blue;
Glad for the country lanes,
And the fall of dew.
After the sun the rain,
After the rain the sun;
This is the way of life,
Till the work be done.
All that we need to do,
Be we low or high,
Is to see that we grow
Nearer the sky.

by Lizette Woodworth Reese