The Longfellow Chorus in Sound

Image, right: The Longfellow Chorus rehearses in Portland, Maine, on March 3, 2012.

Excerpts from the 2012 Longfellow Choral Festival

On YouTube:

Excerpts from the 2011 Longfellow Choral Festival

(Read the Program Notes for the Longfellow 204th Birthday Choral Festival: Longfellow, Liszt & Sullivan. This is a large file. Publication of the combination of text and photos in these program notes are protected through copyright 2011, The Longfellow Chorus, Inc. For permission to quote from these notes please contact Charles Kaufmann)

DownEast Magazine and Salt Institute "Salt Radio" audio featureicon about the Longfellow 'February Frostbite' 2.5K Road Race (Congress Street, Portland, Maine, 8 AM, February 26, 2011)

The Golden Legend (1886) Arthur Sullivan (February 26 & 27, 2011, Portland, Maine, USA)

Songs and Choruses of The 2011 Longfellow Chorus International Composers Competition, 3 PM, February 27, 2011

Franz Liszt and the Cantata Finalists from The 2011 Longfellow Chorus International Composers Competition, 4:30 Matinee, February 26, 2011

Complete sound from the 2010 Longfellow 203rd Birthday Choral Concerts, February 27 & 28, 2010

Listen to a three-part Maine Public Radioicon interview with Angela M. Brown, soprano, Robert Honeysucker, baritone, and Charles Kaufmann, director, about Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Black History Month and The Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 203rd Birthday Choral Concerts.

(Read the Program Notes for the Longfellow Chorus Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 203rd Birthday Choral Concert. This is a large file. Publication of the combination of text and photos in these program notes are protected through copyright 2010, The Longfellow Chorus, Inc. For permission to quote from these notes please contact Charles Kaufmann)

The complete The Death of Minnehaha (1899), Opus 30, No. 2, by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, with The Longfellow Chorus and Orchestra, Angela M. Brown, soprano, and Robert Honeysucker, baritone, Charles Kaufmann, conductor, recorded in Portland, Maine, in February 2010. The Longfellow Chorus Orchestra is reading from photocopies of the original orchestral parts used by members of the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Coleridge-Taylor, himself, at the Norfolk, CT, Music Festival in June 1910 — Coleridge-Taylor's last appearance in the US (courtesy Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, Yale University).

Robert Honeysucker, with The Longellow Chorus, sings The Quadroon Girlicon, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's setting of Longfellow's 1842 poem on slavery, for baritone solo and women's chorus, here in a new orchestration in the style of Coleridge-Taylor (with a nod to the Tannhäuser Overture) by Charles Kaufmann. Source: a 1906 piano/vocal score belonging to "Member 51" of the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Society of Washington, D.C., which was used in the American premiere conducted by Coleridge-Taylor, with Harry T. Burleigh, baritone soloist. [Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University.]

Angela M. Brown sings the only known recording of The Starsicon from Five Fairy Ballads, Opus 54, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's settings of five poems by Kathleen Easmon Simango (1892-1924). This orchestration for string octet by Charles Kaufmann was compiled from vocal score and string parts found in The Library of Congress. The Stars is remarkable for the evident influence of pre-Jazz-Age African-American musicians visiting Coleridge-Taylor in London before 1910, such as J. Rosamond Johnson (1873-1954). What appears to be the earliest manuscript of the song is in the archives of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University.

Two Southern Love Songsicon (Longfellow's She Is a Maid of Artless Grace and If Thou Art Sleeping, Maiden) Opus 12, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor; Mark Sprinkle, tenor, Geoffrey Wieting, pianist

The Longfellow Chorus and Orchestra perform the complete The Black Knight, a Longfellow cantata by Edward Elgar, 1893 (recording of a February 2009 concert performance in Portland, Maine). If anyone wants to know where Henry James got his inspiration for much of his short fiction, look no further than Longfellow's translation of The Black Knight:

The Longfellow Chamber Chorus sings excerpts from "A Longfellow Winter" by Longfellow Chorus founding director Charles Kaufmann:

The First Three Years of The Longfellow Chorus International Composers Competition, 2008-2010: A complete list of MP3 Files of the Twenty-Nine Winning Submissions:

Excerpts from the winning submissions to the 2009-2010 Longfellow Chorus International Composers Competition:

Winning Entries from the 2008-2009 Longfellow Chorus International Composers Competition

If you enjoyed listening, and found these concert recordings useful, please consider making a donation of any amount between $0.99 to $9.99 to The Longfellow Chorus. Many thanks:

Mission Statement of The Longfellow Chorus, Inc.:

The Corporation shall organize and maintain a chorus to perform and record vocal and choral settings of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poetry, written from 1840 to the present, shall inspire and commission new vocal and choral settings of Longfellow's poetry, and shall perform choral music of the Romantic and immediate post-Romantic eras, ca. 1825-1920.

Materials on this website are protected, copyright 2007-2010, The Longfellow Chorus, Inc., Portland, Maine, USA

Contact The Longfellow Chorus:

e-mail: The Longfellow Chorus

The Longfellow Chorus
c/o Charles Kaufmann
P. O. Box 5133
Portland, Maine 04101

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