The Music of Elizabeth Alexander

Works about Love

Title

Poet/Lyricist

Voicing/Instrumentation

Level

A Love Like That (individual song)
A tender ballad of unconditional love
Poet/Lyricist: Hafiz / Daniel Ladinsky
  • Low voice, piano
  • Medium voice, piano
  • High voice, piano
Level: M
A Love Like That: Songs of Unconditional Love
Six songs full of wholehearted grace, generosity and awe
Poet/Lyricist: Silsbee, Emerson, Hafiz, Alexander, White
  • Low voice, piano
  • Medium voice, piano
  • High voice, piano
Level: Various
A Taste of Home
A Split Hickory song about memory, ambivalence and love
Poet/Lyricist: Elizabeth Alexander
  • Solo Voice
Level: M
Even the Stars will Wonder
Songs of love and loss in the aftermath of war
Poet/Lyricist: Rose Ausländer
  • Soprano, chamber orchestra
Level: A
Folks, I’m Telling You
A driving, blues-inflected riff on hard truth and deep love
Poet/Lyricist: Langston Hughes
  • SSATB, piano
Level: MA
Glen Song
A playful ode to what’s really important…love, of course!
Poet/Lyricist: Scott Bates
  • SSATB, piano
Level: M
Go Out! (Concert-Length Work)
A poetic and feisty tribute to liberal religion and freedom of thought
Poet/Lyricist: Centuries of Strong-Minded People
  • A variety of vocal forces
Level: Various
Go Out! (Individual Song)
A rousing song of commission with a message of inclusion and love
Poet/Lyricist: Alfred S. Cole, as inspired by Rev. John Murray
  • SATB, piano
Level: M
Holy One, Source of Radiance and Reason
A luminous affirmation of the unknowable holy presence found “within, among and beyond us”
Poet/Lyricist: Rob Eller-Isaacs
  • Flexible voicing: SATB a cappella OR 2-5 part canon
Level: ME
Immortal Love
An elegantly sculpted chorale about eternal and abiding love
Poet/Lyricist: John Greenleaf Whittier
  • SATB a cappella
Level: ME
Impermanent Things
A rhapsodic meditation on life’s beauty and transience
  • Viola, piano
  • Cello, piano
Level: MA
In the Lonely Midnight
A Christmas carol bearing both mourning and hope, with a lyric written on the eve of World War I
Poet/Lyricist: Theodore Chickering Williams
  • SATB, piano
  • SATB, orchestra
Level: ME
Infant Holy, Infant Lowly
A beloved Polish carol with two different arrangements: “Soulful Close Harmony” and “Classical Chorale”
Poet/Lyricist: Traditional, additional lyrics by Elizabeth Alexander
  • SSA a cappella
Level: ME
Love is the Spirit of this Church
A feast of old-time gospel, with a vision for our time
Poet/Lyricist: Tony Larsen, additional lyrics by Elizabeth Alexander
  • SATB, piano
Level: M
Nature Creature (CD/mp3)
Songs on being alive in this beautiful, complex world
Poet/Lyricist: Lyon, Ignatow, Moore, Ammons, Erdrich, White, Hafiz / Ladinsky
  • Voice, cello, piano
Level: Various
Nature Creature (musical score)
A passionate, eclectic song cycle on the beauty and complexity of being alive
Poet/Lyricist: Lyon, Ignatow, Moore, Ammons, Erdrich, White, Hafiz / Ladinsky
  • Low voice, piano, opt. cello
Level: MA
Shelter This Candle
An evocative work about a cave’s complete darkness – and our own dazzling light
Poet/Lyricist: Edna St. Vincent Millay
  • SATB, oboe, horn, cello, harp
Level: A
Sing Me Awake
A tender and rhapsodic meditation on our return to life after grief and loss
Poet/Lyricist: Gregory Orr
  • SATB, piano, string quartet or string orchestra
Level: MA
Sleep Song
A parent contemplates the serenity of a sleeping child
Poet/Lyricist: Ann Silsbee
  • Low voice, piano
  • Medium voice, piano
  • High voice, piano
Level: ME
Song of Kabir
A luminous song of wholehearted devotion
Poet/Lyricist: Kabir
  • SATB a cappella
Level: M
Spring Revels
Three spring songs full of vitality, generosity, and love
Poet/Lyricist: Langston Hughes, e. e. cummings, Carl Sandburg
  • SATB a cappella
Level: MA
Sue Loves Butter
An exuberant toast to friendship, fun, and everybody’s favorite comfort food
Poet/Lyricist: Elizabeth Alexander
  • SSA, piano
Level: M
The Eternal One
A tender portrait of the divine
Poet/Lyricist: Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Low voice, piano
  • Medium voice, piano
  • High voice, piano
Level: M
We Remember Them
A tender embrace of those we have loved and lost
Poet/Lyricist: Rabbis Sylvan Kamens / Jack Riemer
  • SATB, piano
Level: M
when faces called flowers float out of the ground
A whimsical and amorous song of spring
Poet/Lyricist: E. E. Cummings
  • SATB a cappella
Level: MA
Y Comienzo a Bailar (“And I Begin To Dance”)
An intimate portrait of the bittersweet experience of memory, loss, and love
Poet/Lyricist: Elizabeth Alexander / Augustin Cadena
  • SATB, piano
Level: MA