Clifton Gorge, for choir and piano

Andy McFarlane

CCM Chorale, Brett Scott conductor | University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music | April 22, 2025

Clifton Gorge for choir and piano
Andy McFarlane
Poem by Julie L. Moore
julielmoore.com
https://www.versedaily.org/2013/cliftongorge.shtml
This work was commissioned by Brett Scott, director of the CCM Chorale for the CCM Chorale at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Note from Julie

Years ago when I was living in southwest Ohio and raising my children, we’d often hike in the nearby state parks, including Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve in Yellow Springs. Many trails along the canyon’s rim and wall exist, but the trail I followed most often descended into the gorge. Along that path, I bore witness to how ancient glaciers had cut through the limestone and dolomite and later, melt into the Little Miami River. Still carving through the gorge, the water itself, along with the calls of thrushes and kingfishers, and the swaying of cedars and maples, became, it seemed to me, a woodland choir “charged with the grandeur of God,” like Gerard Manley Hopkins observed in his own poem ruminating on the “dearest freshness deep down things.” For me, therefore, even the minnows testify to such glory.

Program Note

Julie and I were neighbors for much of my upbringing, and I have long wanted to set one of her poems to music. When I came across “Clifton Gorge” online, I was transported back to our small- town coffee shop just south of Clifton, where I first read the poem in Particular Scandals, displayed on a bookshelf next to a weathered piano.

Her vivid words captured the experience of the gorge so richly that they inspired me to add a musical layer, perhaps enticing audiences to “descend into the sanctuary of the gorge” for themselves.

-Andy

"Clifton Gorge" appears in Particular Scandals, published by Wipf & Stock Publishers.
https://wipfandstock.com/9781620327883/particular-scandals/