CANTUS: Be Like the Bird by Abbie Betinis
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- Опубликовано: 4 сен 2024
- Installment twelve from our COVID-19 Sessions recorded live March 17, 19, and 20.
“Be like the bird that, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her -- and sings -- knowing she hath wings.”
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Abbie Betinis' "Be Like the Bird," with text from Victor Hugo is a song we originally performed on this past year’s Christmas program. It was one of the pieces we were most excited about revisiting for our COVID-19 Sessions.
We hope that Abbie’s intention combined with this cultural moment and our performance setting underground will have special resonance for you. Here is Abbie’s program note in full:
“I wrote this canon just after completing cancer treatment for the second time. My family and I sent it out as our annual Christmas card in 2009. And -- while I couldn't have foreseen it at the time -- it would turn into my mantra over the next year, while I underwent a third cancer diagnosis and bone marrow transplant.
My cousin Sarah Riley and I discovered the text quite by accident. In October 2009, our grandfather, the Rt. Rev. John H. Burt (a.k.a Christmas reveler and merry-maker, lover of music and literature, and inspiring leader and activist) had died. After his funeral, and after an impromptu family round-sing (common in the Burt family), Sarah and I were sitting on Grandpa's old couch, reading through some of the sermons he had written and delivered throughout his long life. Sarah is co-director of an incredible program called High Rocks, a comprehensive and unique school for girls founded by her mom, Susan Burt, in the mountains of rural West Virginia.
Sarah and I realized that Grandpa had quoted this lovely Victor Hugo text in a few sermons over the years, always to inspire courage in the face of adversity. It struck me as a surprisingly hopeful text befitting a difficult year, but it also moved me to tears to think of the work that my Aunt Susie and now my cousin herself, sitting there next to me on the couch, are doing to change the world -- one girl at a time.
So I dedicate this carol to High Rocks for Girls. May High Rocks continue to educate, empower, and inspire each girl to know that "she hath wings."
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“Be Like the Bird” by Abbie Betinis. © 2009 by Abbie Betinis Music Co. All rights reserved. Used by permission. www.abbiebetinis.com
linktr.ee/cantussings
My women’s choir sings this! It became so beloved to me that I got a tattoo on my arm that says “she hath wings” with a bird. This is just beautiful.
Wow, Hannah!! I'm so glad my piece meant that much to you. From one winged woman to another... cheers. :)
I'm in All Girl Treble Choir for the second time and this is my 12th grade year. And my teacher showed us this video and I fell in love with it so I ready hope we get to learn it and sing it.❤️(2020-2021)
Beautiful, haunting and perfect.
SO BEAUTIFUL! Got to sing this in college choir at the opening of a bird-themed art exhibit! This cover is immaculate with the acoustics😍
Beautiful! Acoustically that's an interesting space. I've heard Cantus in some great venues live but I'd pay to pull up a chair in that garage with them!
my chorus teacher showed us this song and i forgot how it went so i looked it up and my ears were blessed with this
That’s incredible
Gorgeous!
"In response to Covid-19, the CDC had just issues guidelines limiting gatherings to no more than 10 people at least 6 feet apart. "
What has our society come to...
... totally doesn't get it.