It just started snowing in Boston, so it's time for Fenno's winter music. Our favorite is Fenno "Winter Prayer," which I first encountered at eighteen in a handwritten version on a snowy afternoon in the Glee Club room - Miriam Pelikan (Pittenger) ('89) and Karen Daehnick (Poirier) ('90), sitting on either side of me, remarking that it sounded a little like Britten to them (we'd just sung his "Festival Te Deum" in Battell). It was the first piece of Fenno's in which I could really hear his training with Paul Hindemith (all those fourths!) and feel a sense of repose and serenity in a CT winter (I certainly never felt a sense of response during my own studies!). Now "Winter Prayer" is my favorite of his works, although I'll always remember Tom Porter ('90) singing "Fern Hill" and see Fenno's "whip" gesture during the downbeat rests in the four-spirituals-by-Fenno-Heath (that's the way the Princeton and Harvard Glee Clubs used to announce our second half set).
It's Christmas Eve, so I'm off to conduct Fenno's "The Lamb" at First Parish Arlington, where I was first welcomed by Graham and Liz (Hopkins) Stevens ('90 and '91) and later worked with Jonathan (Markowitz) and Rebecca (Benefiel) Bijur ('01?), who we met singing. My only good memories of Yale are of food and music, and that's a lot, thanks to Maggie Brooks, to the Glee Club, and to Fenno.
Red beans and ricely yours,
Laura Stanfield Prichard CC '90
Central European "Bringing down the Wall" Tour, Co-Manager, '90
Chamber Singers Director, '90
Founding Pitch, Untapped Potential (now called Out of the Blue)
Freshman Chorus Accompanist & Chamber Singers member, '86-87
YGC, Battell, YSM Lab Choruses, Gilbert & Sullivan Society, Calhoun Dramat, YPMB, YAC
231 Bingham Road, Carlisle, MA 01741
