Chicago Songs

Instrumentation: soprano and piano
Duration: 20 minutes
Author: Carl Sandburg
Commissioner: Sacramento Philharmonic

“Conductor Michael Morgan and the orchestra (Sacramento Philharmonic) made its biggest mark with the work of American composers Erickson and Bernstein. The highlight was the world premiere of Erickson’s five-movement “Chicago Songs,” sung by the expressive soprano Marnie Breckenridge, for whom the pieces were written. Each intimate piece offered haunting and poetic musical lines for soprano that played against tightly focused and descriptive writing for strings and winds.”

— Edward Ortiz, Sacramento Bee

Chicago Songs

$20.00

Purchase Score (PDF)

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Composer Kurt Erickson · Chicago Songs - for Voice & Piano

Program Notes: Chicago Songs musically recreates the spirit and people found in Carl Sandburg’s iconic poetry. Sandburg’s world is one filled with the grit of burgeoning industrialization, the earnest hope of immigrant settlers, and the heartache and beauty found in the everyday. His characters are larger than life, yet tragically human - there’s a poignancy in their foibles that I find very attractive. As a composer I’ve always been drawn to nostalgic, highly personal subject matter and these texts compliment my own nostalgic, highly personal musical impulses.

The work was originally commissioned as an orchestral song set by conductor Michael Morgan and the Sacramento Philharmonic with soprano Marnie Breckenridge. Premiere performance October 2008 in Sacramento, CA.