World Premiere

July 26, 2026

4:00 PM
Kanbar Performing Arts Center
San Francisco, California
Program
I. MUSAE
A welcome from one of the Bay Area’s finest treble ensembles.
And This Shall be For Music
Eric Tuan
When the Earth Stands Still
Don MacDonald
The Sun Never Says
Dan Forrest
Blinded by a Leafy Crown
Marie-Claire Saindon
Lay Me Low
Kevin Siegfried
II. LINEAGE
Origins of compositional expression where every moment carries weight.
Super flumina Babylonis
Tomás Luis de Victoria
Die Nacht
Franz Schubert
Idumea
from Sacred Harp
III. POSSIBILITIES
Short-form explorations of intensity and idea density.
Endless Horizons
Eric Tuan
I. There is no fence
II. Who will visit?
III. After nightfall
IV. STORIES
Scenes across an ordinary life. An adventure, told by new voices.
Windy Nights
Eric Choate
Selection from poor hymnal
David Lang
No. 1 - i saw a poor man
Lullaby
Shawn Crouch
Barter
Jeffrey Parola
Selection from poor hymnal
David Lang
No. 14 - i saw a poor man - choral return
Unending Love
Eric Tuan
A note from the director

From the ache of displacement to the boundless embrace of enduring love, today's program traces the many landscapes of the human heart. Woven together across centuries, styles, and voices, these stories invite us to reflect, connect, and listen deeply to one another. This afternoon, we are honored to share music that spans the breadth of the choral tradition: cherished works from generations past, contemporary voices from the last two decades, and five world premieres by accomplished Bay Area composers. Together, these compositions remind us that while music is rooted in history, it is also a living art form, one that continues to challenge and inspire communities for generations to come.

Staff & Ledger’s role extends beyond the performance. We strive to cultivate a space where new music can take root, flourish, and find new life in the hands and hearts of singers far beyond this concert. Through this pilot project, we hope not only to offer an afternoon of meaningful music, but also to make a lasting contribution to the ever-evolving choral landscape. Every rehearsal has been an act of curiosity and shared discovery. We approach each note with generosity, conviction, and joy, and it is our profound privilege to share the culmination of that journey with you today.

If a chord catches your breath, a lyric lingers in your mind, or a melodic phrase sends a shiver down your spine, then this music has done what it was meant to do. It reminds us that amid the many stories and complexities of our lives, we are never truly alone. Your presence this afternoon is part of that music as well. Thank you for gathering with us, for listening with open hearts, and for sharing these moments of connection. We hope these songs continue to resonate long after today's performance, and that we will have the joy of welcoming you again as we continue to explore and celebrate the music that brings us together.

The Performers

TREBLES

  • Kelly Ballou
  • Kelsey Linnett
  • Emily Ryan Kusnadi

TENORS

  • Jeff Howe
  • Sam Faustine
  • Julian Kusnadi

BASSES

  • Jason Dyer
  • Chris Lewis
  • Clayton Moser

FOUNDING DIRECTOR

  • Kory Reid

FEATURED ENSEMBLE

  • Musae
Founding Composers

ERIC CHOATE

Eric Choate is a composer, conductor, and organist whose music has been praised for its "highly inventive approach to the interleaving of polyphonic voices" (The Rehearsal Studio) and described as "rapturous" and "quietly majestic" (Textura.org). His works are published by E.C. Schirmer and VOCES8 Publishing, with recordings on the Priory Records, Arsis Audio and Ulysses Arts labels. His music has been performed by artists including VOCES8, musicians of the San Francisco Symphony, Berkeley Symphony, American Bach Soloists, Las Cruces Symphony, Friction Quartet, Brian Thorsett, and choirs worldwide.

JEFFREY PAROLA

Jeffrey Parola is an American composer of numerous orchestral, chamber, and choral/vocal works. His music is varied and eclectic, reflecting a wide range of musical influences. Jeffrey’s major professional commissions include a work composed for the Empire City Men’s Chorus and the Queer Urban Orchestra, called Break Forth, Dream, set to texts by Walt Whitman, which premiered in New York City in May 2024. Jeffrey’s honors include the 2009 Jim Highsmith Orchestral Composition Prize for The Long Valley, 2009 European American Musical Alliance (EAMA) Prize honorable mention for Sempiterna, 2012 EAMA Prize for The Long Valley, 2013 Rappaport Prize for Music Composition, 2014 Peter David Faith Endowed Memorial Award in Composition for 5 Short Pieces for solo piano, 2016 Hoefer Prize from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the 2016 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

ERIC TUAN

Eric Tuan is currently in his fifth season as Artistic Director of the acclaimed Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir, where he oversees a rigorous choral training program serving 270 youth singers and leads its top ensembles in concerts and collaborations throughout the Bay Area, the United States, and abroad. As Artistic Director of Convivium, the chamber chorus he founded in 2012, he continues to present creative programs highlighting underrepresented compositional voices and themes of social justice. Tuan also serves as Director of Music and Organist at Christ Episcopal Church in Los Altos. Tuan is also an active choral composer and is frequently commissioned by leading choral organizations, including Volti, Peninsula Women’s Chorus, Cantabile Youth Singers of Silicon Valley, Schola Cantorum, Musae, and Vox Aurea.

The Texts
And This Shall be For Music
And This Shall be For Music
by Robert Louis Stevenson
I will make you brooches and toys for your delight Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night. I will make a palace fit for you and me Of green days in forests and blue days at sea. I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room, Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom, And you shall wash your linen and keep your body bright In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night. And this shall be for music when no one else is near, The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear! That only I remember, that only you admire, Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.
When the Earth Stands Still
When the Earth Stands Still
by Don MacDonald
Come listen in the silence of the moment before rain comes down. There’s a deep sigh in the quiet of the forest and the tall tree’s crown. Now hold me. Will you take the time to hold me and embrace the chill? Or miss me. Will you take the time to miss me when the earth stands still? ‘Cause there’s no use running ‘cause the storm’s still coming and you’ve been running for so many years. Come listen in the silence of the moment before shadows fall. Feel the tremor of your heartbeat matching heartbeat as we both dissolve. Now hold me. Will you take the time to hold me and embrace the chill? Or miss me. Will you take the time to miss me when the earth stands still? ‘Cause there’s no use running ‘cause the storm’s still coming and you’ve been running for so many years. So stay with me, held in my arms. Like branches of a tree, they’ll shelter you for many years.
The Sun Never Says
The Sun Never Says
by Hafiz
Even After All this time The sun never says to the earth, “You owe Me.” Look What happens With a love like that, It lights the Whole Sky.
Blinded by a Leafy Crown
Leaves
by Sara Teasdale
One by one, like leaves from a tree All my faiths have forsaken me; But the stars above my head Burn in white and delicate red, And beneath my feet the earth Brings the sturdy grass to birth. I who was content to be But a silken-singing tree, But a rustle of delight In the wistful heart of night— I have lost the leaves that knew Touch of rain and weight of dew. Blinded by a leafy crown I looked neither up nor down— But the little leaves that die Have left me room to see the sky; Now for the first time I know Stars above and earth below.
Lay Me Low
Lay Me Low
by Sister Addah Z. Potter
Lay me low. Where the Lord can find me, where the Lord can own me, where the Lord can bless me.
Super flumina Babylonis
Super flumina Babylonis
from Psalm 137
Super flumina Babylonis, Illic sedimus et flevimus, Dum recordaremur tui, Sion. In salicibus in medio ejus, Suspendimus organa nostra. Quia illic interrogaverunt nos Qui captivos duxerunt nos. Verba cantionum et qui abduxerunt nos, Hymnum cantate nobis de canticis Sion. Quomodo cantabimus canticum Domini in terra aliena?
By the streams of Babylon We sat down and we wept When we remembered you, O Zion. Among the willows on its banks We hung our harps. For there they who have taken us captive Asked us the words of our songs; They who had wasted us said, Sing a hymn for us from the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song In a strange land?
Die Nacht
Der Unglückliche
by Caroline Pichler
Die Nacht bricht an, mit leisen Lüften sinket, Sie auf den müden Sterblichen herab; Der sanfte Schlaf, des Todes Bruder, winket, Und legt die Menschen in ihr täglich Grab. Jetzt wachet auf der lichtberaubten Erde Vielleicht nur noch die Arglist und der Schmerz, Und jetzt, da ich durch nichts gestöret werde, Lass deine Wunden bluten, armes Herz. Du hast geliebt, du hast das Glück empfunden, Dem jede Seligkeit auf Erden weicht. Du hast ein Herz, das dich verstand, gefunden, Des schönsten Glückes höchstes Ziel erreicht. Da stürzte dich ein trostlos Machtwort nieder, Aus deinem Himmel, und dein stilles Glück, Das allzuschöne Traumbild kehrte wieder Zur bessren Welt, aus der es kam, zurück. Zerrissen sind nun all die süssen Bande, Mich hält kein Herz mehr auf der weiten Welt. Was ist’s, das mich in diesem wüsten Lande, In dieser öden Einsamkeit noch hält! Nur einen Strahl seh ich von ferne blinken, Im Götterglanz erscheint die heil’ge Pflicht. Und wenn des müden Geistes Kräfte sinken, So sinkt der Mut, den sie mir einflösst, nicht.
Night falls, descending with light breezes upon weary mortals; gentle sleep, death’s brother, beckons, and lays men in their daily graves. Now only malice and pain perchance watch over the earth, robbed of light; and now, since nothing may disturb me, let your wounds bleed, poor heart. You have loved; you have experienced a happiness which eclipses all earthly bliss. You have found a heart that understands you, you have attained the highest goal of bliss. Then the wretched voice of authority cast you down from your heaven and tranquil happiness, the all-too-lovely dream vision, returned to the better world from which it came. Now all the sweet bonds are torn asunder; no heart now cherishes me in this wasteland, in this desolate solitude. I see a ray of light shining from afar, my sacred duty appears in divine radiance. And if the strength of my weary spirit fails, then the courage which that duty inspires in me shall not fail.
Idumea
Idumea
by Charles Wesley
And am I born to die? To lay this body down And must my trembling spirit fly Into a world unknown? Waked by the trumpet sound I from my grave shall rise And see the Judge with glory crowned And see the flaming skies!
Endless Horizons
Excerpts from Poets Behind Barbed Wire
by Sojin Takei; Transated by Jiro Nakano & Kay Nakano
There is no fence High up in the sky. The evening crows Fly up and disappear Into the endless horizon. When the war is over And after we are gone Who will visit This lonely grave in the wild Where my friend lies buried? After nightfall Silence envelopes The wilderness. The cold moon Shines in vain.
Windy Nights
Windy Nights
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Whenever the moon and stars are set, Whenever the wind is high, All night long in the dark and wet, A man goes riding by. Late in the night when the fires are out, Why does he gallop and gallop about? Whenever the trees are crying aloud, And ships are tossed at sea, By, on the highway, low and loud, By at the gallop goes he. By at the gallop he goes, and then By he comes back at the gallop again.
i saw a poor man
from poor hymnal
by David Lang
I saw a man I saw a poor man I saw a poor man fall I saw a man I saw a poor man in a corner with no food I saw a man I saw a poor man a poor young man feeling sad, praying bending over his plough hanging on to his plough I saw a poor man I saw a poor man he was begging he was trudging, barefoot he was asking for food he was asking me for food he was walking by himself on the street, barefoot an obscure man weeping staring at me I saw a man I saw a poor man I saw a poor man fall
Lullaby
“Lullaby” from The Garden of Paradise
by Brian Turner
Akbar stirs the chai, then carries his sleeping four-year-old, Habib, to bed under glow-in-the-dark stars arranged on the ceiling. Late at night when gunfire frightens them both, Habib cries for his father, who tells him It's just the drums, a new music, and the tracery of lights in the sky he retraces on the ceiling, showing the boy how each bright star travels from this dark place, to the other. From this dark place, to the other. From this dark place, to the other.
Barter
Barter
by Sara Teasdale
Life has loveliness to sell, All beautiful and splendid things, Blue waves whitened on a cliff, Soaring fire that sways and sings, And children's faces looking up Holding wonder like a cup. Life has loveliness to sell, Music like a curve of gold, Scent of pine trees in the rain, Eyes that love you, arms that hold, And for your spirit's still delight, Holy thoughts that star the night. Spend all you have for loveliness, Buy it and never count the cost; For one white singing hour of peace Count many a year of strife well lost, And for a breath of ecstasy Give all you have been, or could be.
i saw a poor man - choral return
from poor hymnal
by David Lang
I saw a man I saw a poor man I saw a poor man fall I saw a man I saw a poor man in a corner with no food I saw a man I saw a poor man a poor young man feeling sad, praying bending over his plough hanging on to his plough I saw a poor man I saw a poor man he was begging he was trudging, barefoot he was asking for food he was asking me for food he was walking by himself on the street, barefoot an obscure man weeping staring at me I saw a man I saw a poor man I saw a poor man fall
Unending Love
Unending Love
by Rabindranath Tagore
You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount. At the heart of time, love of one for another. We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell- Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever. Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you The love of all man’s days both past and forever: Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life. The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours – And the songs of every poet past and forever.

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