Product Description
Delightfully fun piece with a Barbershop vibe that riffs on songs popular in the 1910s and 1920s! This new SATB+piano version is accessible for a community choir and intermediate level pianist.
Letters to Faith, originally an eight-voice a cappella choral work and revised in 2024 for SATB and piano, sets to music two letters written by the composer's grandparents to their daughter, Faith Inglis, while she was a student at Pomona College. Faith's parents wrote these letters to comfort and encourage her after a poor showing on an exam, but unwittingly revealed amusing and poignant family characteristics.
The letters mention three well known songs of the day: The Sunshine of Your Smile, I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles, and The Good Ship Mary Ann. Elements of these songs are woven into the piece, allowing early twentieth century popular harmonies to blend with modern sounds, reaching back ninety years with a heartfelt genealogical family hug.
Family background:
- Faith's passion and talent for music led her to a career as a voice teacher and choir director.
- Faith's mother, Ruth Penfield Inglis, had suffered from a brain tumor since her teenage years.
- Her brother, pioneering neurosurgeon Dr. Wilder Penfield, operated on her in 1928, extending her life until she died July 14, 1931, less than four years after these letters were written.
- Faith's father, John Percy Inglis, served in World War I as an army captain, and then had a career as a high school principal.
- Peg was Faith's gentle and soft-spoken sister.
- Lib or Lizabeth was Faith's ambitious and highly educated sister.
- Stuart, Faith's youngest brother, was the composer's father, not quite four years old at the time of these letters.
- Duke was the family dog.
Duration approximately 10:50
Difficulty 3 Intermediate
Please contact the composer at https://adrienneinglis.com or adrienne.inglis@gmail.com to report a performance and any concert reviews so she can include it on her website.
Copyright © 2017 Adrienne Inglis, revised in 2024
This product was created by a member of ArrangeMe, Hal Leonard's global self-publishing community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters. ArrangeMe allows for the publication of unique arrangements of both popular titles and original compositions from a wide variety of voices and backgrounds.