Samuel Augustus Ward, Katharine Lee Bates

An American Hymn

This setting of 'America The Beautiful' was first performed on March 11, 1967, in the Air Force Academy Chapel near Colorado Springs, only a few miles from where, in 1983, Katherine Lee Bates wrote the first lines ofher now famous poem, certainly the most beautiful and moving of all hymns to America. The occasion was a concert given by the choral and brass groups of the University of Colorado for the Music Educators National Conference, Southwest Division.

The setting is concieved as a unified, dramatic whole, using melodic motives from the Samuel A. Ward tune in the introduction and connecting sections. Each of the four stanzas is treated differently, theirpowerful emotion and meaning culminating in the final affirmation and prayer of the last stanza which is sung in unison with descant and full accompaniment.

The work may be performed with an Organ (or Piano accompaniment orwith a group of instruments, consisting of 3 Trumpets in Bb, 4 Horns in F, 3 Trombones, Euphonium and Tuba.

Instrumental parts available from the publisher.