Songs of Innocence and of Experience, version 1



A musical setting of William Blake's set of poems by the same title.

I originally conceived of this as being for a full SATB choir (with about 5-10 people per part) plus an instrumental octet, although this would have been impractical for me to arrange a performance of, so I had it performed with an amplified vocal octet (2 people per part) rather than a full choir. I made this decision partway through writing the work, so my approach to writing the vocal parts in this version was not consistent in terms of whether I was thinking of them as choral parts or as amplified solo parts. For version 2, I decided to commit to thinking of the vocal ensemble as a group of 6 amplified soloists, and write the parts accordingly.

I'm considering version 2 to be the "canonical" version of this work (once it's finished anyway), so I didn't hold the recordings of this version to as high a standard as I normally would, and their quality is a bit all over the place. Still, I think this version stands well enough on its own to justify giving it its own space on the website (rather than dumping it in the archives).





Filters
Duration


0:18-0:54

0:58-1:51

1:59-2:21

2:32-3:37

3:45-7:14
Voices


solo

duet

solo with backups

half ensemble

full ensemble
Instruments


2 players

3 players

4 players

5 players

full octet






Part 1



#TitleDurationVoicesInstrumentsScoreRecording






Part 2



#TitleDurationVoicesInstrumentsScoreRecording






Performer credit

Notes
Movements 1 and 2 were recorded by the part 2 main performers.
Movement 7 was recorded by the part 1 substitute performers.
All other movements in part 1 were recorded by the part 1 main performers.
Part 2 was mostly recorded by the part 2 main performers, with a few parts of a few movements recorded by the part 2 substitute performers.
No, your ears don't deceive you, yes, I did change the lyrics in movement 27 to match the names of the singers :).

Soprano 1
Hannah Earl

Soprano 2
Maggie Timmer (part 1)
Lexi Galla (part 2)

Alto 1
Hannah Joseph

Alto 2
Alicia Renney (part 1)
Emilee Bodien (part 2)

Tenor 1
Levi Hamlin (part 1)
James Richardson (part 2)

Tenor 2
Shane Oakley (part 1 main)
Matt Hazel (part 2, part 1 substitute)

Bass 1
Jamal Epperson

Bass 2
Michael Peterman (part 1)
Jordan Thomas (part 2)

Flute
Rebekah Cain (part 1)
Bethany Hansen (part 2)

Clarinet
Lauren Lawler (part 1)
Michael Hudson-Casanova (part 2 main)
JJ Treadway (part 2 substitute)

Trumpet
Amy Head (part 1, part 2 main)
Zach Ploeger (part 2 substitute)

Horn
Nathan Haering (part 1)
Dominic Hayes (part 2)

Violin
Thomas Hanawalt (part 1)
John Robey (part 2)

Cello
Taylor Crow (part 1 main, part 2 main)
Brittany Harris (part 1 substitute)
Patrick Hartson (part 2 substitute)

Percussion
Nick Conley

Piano
Stephanie Baird (part 1 main)
Justin Ortez (part 2 main)
JJ Treadway (part 1 substitute, part 2 substitute)