There Will Come Soft Rain

Live Recording

We are thrilled to share the live video recording of our 2023 Adelaide Chamber Choir Festival commissioned work, There Will Come Soft Rain, composed for five combined chamber choirs by Carl Crossin, Founder and Conductor Emeritus, Adelaide Chamber Singers!

We will also be singing a new arrangement of this stunning work (for just one chamber choir) at our 2024 Adelaide Festival concert of the same name.

A delicate fabric of bird song floats in the air,
The smell of wet wild earth is everywhere.
I must pass nothing by without loving it much,
The raindrops – with my lips,
The grass – with my touch,
The sky – with my sight;
The spirit – with my heart;
The air – with my breath;
The soul – with my art;
Shall I see again the world on the first day of Spring
Shining after rain – or when sparrows sing?
There will come soft rain and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound,
And frogs in pools singing at night,
And flannel flowers in tremulous white,
Rosellas will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on branch and wire.
And not one will know of the war, not one;
Not one will care when, at last, it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If humankind should perish utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
Like barley bending and rising again,
So would I, unbroken, arise from pain;
Like saltbush swaying in fields by the sea,
Singing in hard wind ceaselessly;
So would I, softly, day long, night long,
Change my sorrow into song,
Would change my sorrow into song…
There will come soft rain,
The smell of wet wild earth is everywhere,
A delicate fabric of birdsong floats in the air…

The text of There Will Come Soft Rain has been adapted by Carl Crossin from three poems by Sara Teasdale (1884–1933). The poems celebrate the resilience of nature, the pure cleansing quality of soft rain and the uplifting beauty of birdsong. This is music of resilience, renewal and hope. A hope that, despite the threat in our own time of global degradation, climate change and the ravages of war, nature will continue to replenish itself, and that humanity will finally come to respect the fragility of our earthly mother.

Text: adapted by Carl Crossin from Sara Teasdale’s cycle of poems, “The Dark Cup”

Commissioned by Adelaide Chamber Singers for the inaugural Adelaide Chamber Choir Festival, and performed live in St Peter’s Cathedral, North Adelaide, Sunday 8 October 2023

Sam Allchurch
Conductor, Sydney Chamber Choir (NSW)

Christie Anderson
Conductor, Adelaide Chamber Singers (SA)

Dr Robert Braham OAM
Conductor, Voyces (WA)

Michael Fulcher
Conductor, Polyphonic Voices (VIC)

Dr Graeme Morton A
Conductor, Brisbane Chamber Choir (QLD)

Carl Crossin
Conductor, Combined Choirs

Digital Broadcast Partner: Australian Digital Concert Hall

Videography: Chris Howlett

Audio: Gabs Agostino

The 2023 Adelaide Chamber Choir Festival was presented by Adelaide Chamber Singers in association with Brisbane Chamber Choir, Polyphonic Voices, Sydney Chamber Choir, and Voyces – with support from Arts South Australia and the Adelaide Chamber Singers Supporters Fund.
On behalf of the participating choirs, Adelaide Chamber Singers gratefully acknowledges the continuing support of the generous donors in each state.

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