VSA 10th Annual Concert

One of my favorite events of the year is the VSA Annual Concert hosted by VSA Charlottesville/Albemarle (therapeutic parks & recreation for people with special needs) .   I love the opportunity it gives me to try out a new musical idea on a very receptive audience.

This year I played my arrangement of a poem by George Eliot I set to music, "Spring Come Hither."
I accidentally found a bunch of her poetry online and I was really drawn in by her musings on nature and life.  She is a female writer from the Victorian Era whose real name was Mary Anne Evans. In those days, it was common for women to change their names to a man's name in order to have more opportunity to be published. She was most known for her novel, "Middlemarch, published in 1871.

Here are the words to her poem:

Spring comes hither
Buds the rose . . .
Roses wither
Sweet spring goes . . .

O ja là
O ja là . . .
Would she carry me.

Summer soars
Wide-wing'd day . . .
White light pours
Flies away . . .
O ja là
O ja là . . .

Would he carry me.
Soft winds blow
Westward borne . . .
Onward go
Towards the morn

O ja là
O ja là . . .
Would they carry me.
Sweet birds sing
O'ver the graves
Then take wing

O'ver the waves
O ja là
O ja là . . .
Would they carry me.

For the introduction, I played Pachebel Canon in D. 

I loved hearing all of the other artists as well. It is a time of sharing our love of music and enjoying our community. 

I have set 6 poems of George Eliot's to music and hope to record them some day!