Item Number: EC.1.3398
How Can I Keep From Singing? was commissioned by Cantus in 2014 for their album A Harvest Home and subsequent tours through Northern Europe, the BalticStates, and United States. Written as a companion piece to the composer's setting of Simple Gifts (also commissioned by Cantus four years earlier) this is an arrangement of this iconic folk hymn that sounds traditionally American, immediately recognizable, and not overly arranged, while still having something fresh to say musically using the sonorous sounds of men's voices.
Knowing that Cantus planned to place How Can I Keep From Singing? at the end of their tour program, the final bars were fitted with an extended cadence to bring their staged performances to a satisfying and heartfelt close.
Recording Credits:
Recording by Cantus used by permission of Mary E. Lee.
