PROGRAM NOTES: Cajun Sketches
Cajun Sketches paints a musical portrait of the Cajuns’ journey from the Maritime provinces of Eastern Canada to their present day home in Louisiana.
The Acadians were early French Colonists who began settling the Maritime provinces in Canada around 1604, and this region became known as Acadia. Beginning in 1755 the British who ultimately won power in the region, began deporting Acadians in what became know as “Le Grand Dérangement” or “the Great Upheaval”. Most of these Acadian exiles would eventually find their way to Louisiana and settle there. They developed a unique culture and became known as Cajuns.
Cajun Sketches has four sections, each representing a various part of this journey. Maritime Winds is a textual section that represents the winds and waves the brought the first colonists across the Atlantic to settle in New France,
Au Chant de L’Alouette uses the opening melody of this well-known Acadian folk song that tells the story of an argument between an Acadian berry picker and a nesting lark.
Scattered were they, like flakes of snow is a sorrowful tune that expresses the loss of the Acadian’s homeland and their deportation. The title is from a passage in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem “Evangeline” which is set during the time of the Great Upheaval.
Many a weary year had passed since the burning of Grand-Pré When on the falling tide the freighted vessels departed
Bearing a nation, with all its household goods, into exile
Exile without an end, and without an example in story
Far asunder, on separate coasts the Acadians landed
Scattered were they, like flakes of snow, when the wind from the north-east Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken the
banks of Newfoundland Friendless, homeless, they wandered from city to city
From the cold lakes of the north to the sultry Southern savannas ...
La danse de Mardi Gras is based on a traditional Cajun folk song. It is a lively dance tune and this setting uses changing meters for a rhythmic and energetic finale to the piece.
Cajun Sketches was commissioned in 2013 by the Texas Womans University Flute Choir, Pam Youngblood - director. It was premiered at the 2013 National Flute Association Convention in New Orleans, LA.
The Acadians were early French Colonists who began settling the Maritime provinces in Canada around 1604, and this region became known as Acadia. Beginning in 1755 the British who ultimately won power in the region, began deporting Acadians in what became know as “Le Grand Dérangement” or “the Great Upheaval”. Most of these Acadian exiles would eventually find their way to Louisiana and settle there. They developed a unique culture and became known as Cajuns.
Cajun Sketches has four sections, each representing a various part of this journey. Maritime Winds is a textual section that represents the winds and waves the brought the first colonists across the Atlantic to settle in New France,
Au Chant de L’Alouette uses the opening melody of this well-known Acadian folk song that tells the story of an argument between an Acadian berry picker and a nesting lark.
Scattered were they, like flakes of snow is a sorrowful tune that expresses the loss of the Acadian’s homeland and their deportation. The title is from a passage in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem “Evangeline” which is set during the time of the Great Upheaval.
Many a weary year had passed since the burning of Grand-Pré When on the falling tide the freighted vessels departed
Bearing a nation, with all its household goods, into exile
Exile without an end, and without an example in story
Far asunder, on separate coasts the Acadians landed
Scattered were they, like flakes of snow, when the wind from the north-east Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken the
banks of Newfoundland Friendless, homeless, they wandered from city to city
From the cold lakes of the north to the sultry Southern savannas ...
La danse de Mardi Gras is based on a traditional Cajun folk song. It is a lively dance tune and this setting uses changing meters for a rhythmic and energetic finale to the piece.
Cajun Sketches was commissioned in 2013 by the Texas Womans University Flute Choir, Pam Youngblood - director. It was premiered at the 2013 National Flute Association Convention in New Orleans, LA.
--- Peter Senchuk