Rivers of Light

for two solo voices, mixed choir, and jew’s harp

Rivers of Light might be seen as a companion piece to Northern Lights and, indeed, it revisits some of the same ideas. It has a similar folk-song opening—this time from the Sámi people of Scandinavia (the piece was commissioned by the Swedbank Choir in Riga, Swedbank being a Swedish bank with a big presence in Latvia). This is eventually combined with another Sámi folk song for a male voice over another of Ešenvalds’ ‘eternal’ chorales, and the words of the explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Charles Francis Hall also appear in a kaleidoscope of texts that facilitates a sustained but varied musical vision of light — specifically the Northern Lights — in its many forms.

— from notes by Gabriel Jackson © 2015

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Year
2014
Commissioner
Swedbank Choir and Artūrs Ancāns, conductor
Instrumentation
soli SB, SSAATTBBB, jew’s harp C
Text
Texts from Sámi folk songs and the writings of Candace Savage, Kari Kaila, Charles Francis Hall, William Reed and Fridtjof Nansen
Language
Sámi, English
Duration
5 min 30 sec
Score
ISMN
979-0-69795-324-6 (MB1415)
Recordings
State Choir LatvijaFrom the dim and distant past
The Choir of Trinity College CambridgeNorthern Lights & other choral works
Portland State Chamber ChoirThe Doors of Heaven