A Girl's Garden - SAA - From "Frostiana"
By Randall Thompson

I sang this piece with the Girls' Glee Club from Austin High School in Chicago, IL during the 1960's. One performance was at McCormick Place with other top all female groups from throughout the school system. Without doubt, diction played a primary roll in the presentation. The attentiveness of...

the singers to the conductor so every voice started and stopped at precisely the same instant, also contributed to the easy understanding of the words by the audience. Edna B. Pohlmann was our director at Austin High School. "Teach," as we called her, had also directed the group when my mother attended the school many years before me. She was an outstanding instructor, focusing on proper breathing and diction. The years spent in her class developed my lifelong love of music and appreciation for proper presentation.

I am singing in an advanced middle school choir, and we worked long and hard on this piece. We sang this song at a state competition, and the most important thing to get correct on this piece is diction. The beauty of this piece is based on the vowels and...

consonants, and if you can't hear them then the essential part is gone. The fast-moving pace of it makes it difficult, but that's the whole fun of it. If you can get everything right, it's well worth it.

Dear Music enthusiast, I rate this Frostiana pice by Randall Thompson a Five Star. I am currently going to sing this piece with the Symphony Silicon Valley Chorale in San Jose this Thurs. with other Frostiana pieces. The Frost poem set to music has funny lyrics. Also the music he...

has put to it adds so much to the poem. It is delightful! The only hard part about Randall Thompson Frostiana pieces is that you have to enunciate the words well (consonants AND vowels) or you won't understand the words which is what he wants. I have sung 42 years and have been in professional choirs going on 22 yrs. (and church) Try all the Frostiana pieces for your group choirs, fairly large or smaller but not too small. Young people would like this piece also (high school) Take care not to sing it too loud in some parts. Happy Singing. D.M.