Description
Kallman Creates Publications
A winter memory for unison or 2-part voices, piano or chamber orchestra.
Duration: 4’15”.
Listen
(Lawrence Children’s Choir, Lawrence, KS; Carolyn Welch, conductor)
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Composer’s Notes
When I was nine years old, my parents had the good sense to move only a block and a half away from one of the favorite sledding hills in my hometown of Austin, Minnesota. This song attempts to capture the memories of one night of my life as a child, and I am hoping that any children who sing this will also come to know the magic of a January evening under a star-filled sky, screaming and laughing down a hill of fresh snow with their friends. Here is the text:
After the storm, though the house is nice and warm,
with my brother after supper I get bundled up
and soon we’re running through the snow,
to the place we know, laughing at two below!
Soon at the top (where we barely wait to stop)
with a running start we fall onto our flyers
just in time to steer them ‘round a tree.
Heaven for you and me!
We’re as happy as two kids can be!
Somebody has a toboggan so a hundred of us
all pile on and go screaming to the bottom
but we’re losing our grip,
and we’re heading for a dip.
Someone yells “Abandon ship!”
and they all go rolling and laughing
and scatter all over the hill.
So when it fin’lly glides to a gentle stop
in the dark by the tall elm tree,
the only one left on the sled is me.
And looking up, I see a thousand stars;
no, I see a million, billion, zillion stars.
And it makes me wonder, wonder who I am,
and where we are.
Back up the hill, just a few more runs until
we are happily exhausted but we know
that it is time to pull our sleds back home,
back through the drifted snow,
so sorry that we have to go.
We come inside, our mother waiting there,
the smell of sweet hot choc’late and popcorn
fills the air.
We drink the comfort, we know the peace,
we live in a home where love is shared.
And when I’m in bed and close my eyes:
a million stars!
–Daniel Kallman
