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CFAMC Listening Page #85

First issued November 20, 2011

A monthly musical offering by a composer member of the Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers.
Both your listening and comments are encouraged.

Walter Saul

Wings of the Dawn

Performed by Les Flûtes Enchantées

Janette Erickson, Conductor
Dotty Warkentine, Harp
Linda Hamilton, String Bass

To view a PDF copy of the score while you listen, first download the score.

Program Notes

If I take the wings of the morning,
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall thy hand lead me,
and thy right hand shall hold me.
(Psalm 139:9-10, King James Version)

Commissioned by Janette Erickson, “Wings of the Dawn” is inspired by the verses above, her favorite scripture. From a single note, the opening unfurls like the wings of the morning, as the Psalmist seeks to flee God’s presence. The music dissolves from a gapped, six-note scale reminiscent of Bartók into the gentle Dorian scale on G to represent God’s eternal, abiding presence. In its course, the music depicts both the Lord’s strength and His tenderness with His followers.

Composer’s Statement of Faith

On October 1, 1973, at midnight, I was reborn into the Kingdom of Heaven through Jesus Christ, and signed a commitment to Him in the back of my Gideon New Testament. Since then, I study and use God’s Word in both the Old Testament and New Testament to guide my life by His direction.

I treasure the different reflections of God’s light to the world in many Christian denominations, and, in a few cases, permit myself to be challenged even by non-Christian traditions. Hanukkah has assumed a new importance to me as I read how Jesus Christ, in John 10:22-39, used this Festival of Lights to reiterate His claim as the Light of the world. Islam’s very name challenges me to examine myself closely to see if I am truly submitted to God’s will for my life, which, often, I am not. While I know the stark reality of Romans 3:23, how far short I fall of God’s glory, I rejoice because I serve a God Who chooses to be merciful to me. And I rejoice in being a part of His family, whom He uses over and over again to bring me back to Himself. This God is certainly worthy of all the music I can write and perform and teach to His glory alone.

Composer Biography

Walter B. Saul II, distinguished composer and pianist, holds degrees from Duke and Eastman. His many composition honors include 21 ASCAP awards from 1990-2011, as well as “Composer of the Year” commissions from North Carolina Music Teachers Association (1986) and Oregon Music Teachers Association (1990). He was also awarded the Burlington Northern Faculty Achievement Awards in Scholarship at Warner Pacific College in 1989 and 1992. In 1998 and 2002, he won Warner Pacific College’s Kendall Award for Scholarship. In 1996 and 1999, Saul was one of ten composers selected to participate in the Ernest Bloch Composers Symposium in Newport, Oregon. Saul has also received numerous “Meet the Composer” grants. Performances of his works have occurred in sixteen states and three nations.

As a pianist, Saul has performed and presented clinics extensively. He has been heard on radio in four states and has served as clinician and adjudicator throughout the Carolinas and in Oregon and California. He has performed both books of Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier from memory; Book I in 1975 and Book II in 1997, thereby separating these performances by the same amount of time that separated their composition. In a further tribute to Bach, he recently completed From Alpha to Omega, his own volume of 24 preludes and fugues in all major and minor keys, progressing from A major (Alpha) through G# minor (Omega). Three preludes and fugues from this work have been performed in Carnegie Hall in 2004 and 2009.

He has released three CDs of his works: Out of Darkness Into His Marvelous Light (1998), From Alpha to Omega (2002), and Songs of Requited Love (2007). His music appears also on a fourth CD, Les flûtes enchantées, and on the Ring of Fire 2001 DVD. Saul has taught at Eastern Illinois University, Pfeiffer College in Misenheimer, North Carolina, and Warner Pacific College in Portland, Oregon. He presently is Professor of Music at Fresno Pacific University, where he teaches piano, theory, composition, music history, and music appreciation. He resides in Fresno with his wife. They have two married daughters and one grandson.

- - -  SOLI DEO GLORIA!  - - -

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