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About the Composer
Jennifer Lucy Cook
Compose Like a Girl
Blow, Blow, thou Winter Wind (Cook)
Premiered at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, your treble choir will love this piece!
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Blow, Blow, thou Winter Wind
for SSA choir, tambourine & hand drum
“Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind” is filled with delightful surprises, including percussion, some aleatoric passages, rapidly changing dance-like meters, and an unsentimental conclusion that “pops.” Treble choirs of all ages will love singing it, due in large part to expert writing for the voice and repeated patterns.
Despite writing music in such a wide range of genres, Jen’s music is united by a keen love for storytelling with song. She prioritizes specific, highly emotional lyrics, melodic earworms, and infectious rhythmic grooves, and conceives of every piece from a dramatic, narrative-driven perspective. She earned a Master’s degree in Musical Theater Writing from Goldsmiths University in London and a Bachelor’s in Media Music from Brigham Young University. Jen is mentored by renowned composer Eric Whitacre.
Composer’s Notes
In this text, an excerpt from As You Like It, “Heigh ho, sing heigh ho!” is a celebration with an undercurrent of bitter- ness. When ingratitude and feigned friendship stings more than the winter wind, you need music that you can still dance to without ignoring the truth at the heart of the mat- ter! It’s a sort of “haters gonna hate, I’m just gonna shake it off” anthem, except unlike Taylor Swift’s pop song, this is a modern take on a medieval folk dance. The tune feels to me like something that could have been sung in Shakespeare’s time to celebrate the winter solstice, while the wind-like aleatoric sections bookend it, as though blowing away the old year and hastening in the new one.
– Jennifer Lucy Cook
Text
Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
– William Shakespeare, from As You Like It
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