cindy mctee

SHENANDOAH
arrangement for flute, violin obligato or second flute, and strings

2011
4.5 minutes

dedicated to
SIR JAMES AND LADY JEANNE GALWAY





score & audio examples

Click on the speaker icon below to hear virtual instruments play Shenandoah in the version for flute, violin obligato, and strings.
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Shenandoah

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program notes

There are many reasons why I decided to write an arrangement of the folk song, Shenandoah: the beautiful melody invited and challenged me to harmonize it; I was busy dealing with health issues at the time and knew that a re-creative (less intense) activity of this sort would help me cope; and I wanted to say "thank you" to friends Jeanne and Jimmy Galway for their generosity and wonderful friendship.

The introduction and coda borrow from the second movement of Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, From the New World, an idea suggested to me by Leonard Slatkin who was conducting the work at the time I shared my first draft of Shenandoah with him.

According to Wikipedia, Oh Shenandoah, also called simply Shenandoah, or Across the Wide Missouri, is a traditional American folk song of uncertain origin, dating at least to the early 19th century. The lyrics may tell the story of a roving trader in love with the daughter of an Indian chief; in this interpretation, the rover tells the chief of his intent to take the girl with him far to the west, across the Missouri River. Other interpretations tell of a pioneer's nostalgia for the Shenandoah River Valley in Virginia and a young woman who is his daughter; or of a Union soldier in the American Civil War, dreaming of his country home to the west of the Missouri river, in Shenandoah, Iowa (although the town lies some 50 miles east of the river.) The song is also associated with escaped slaves who were said to sing the song in gratitude because the river allowed their scent to be lost.

press/reviews

The encores included a sweet arrangement of the American folk tune "Shenandoah" by composer Cindy McTee . . . The music was bathed with warm feelings of tradition, love and family -- just in time for Thanksgiving.

Mark Stryker
Detroit Free Press

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. . . [a] beautiful arrangement of Shenandoah.  

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. . . an attractive and effective Shenandoah . . .  

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Sir James and Lady Galway performed at the 2011 wedding of Slatkin to composer Cindy McTee, who thanked the Galways with an arrangement for two flutes of the folk song ‘Shenandoah’. They played it gorgeously here on their 18-carat gold flutes, Sir James voicing the famous tune and Lady Galway providing harmony and counterpoint, all set against McTee’s lovely orchestral accompaniment.

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