Scott Ordway: North Woods
North Woods
By Scott Ordway
Coming October 24, 2025 // New Focus Records
Note from the Director
Scott Ordway wrote North Woods for Lorelei in 2014, at a time when we were beginning to hone in on who we were as an ensemble, and what we had to offer the rich landscape of vocal ensemble music already in existence. It is rare for Lorelei to keep a piece in our repertoire for more than 10 years. Why, then, does this piece still have such a hold on us?
North Woods is a work that has defined Lorelei’s sound for many listeners. It is unique in its ability to both capture a part of Lorelei’s past while still fitting us extremely well in the present. It carries with it the memories of the many singers who have lent their voices to its soloistic yet anonymous textures, of the places and spaces that we have offered it to, and of the friendship I hold with a composer that has known Lorelei since almost our very beginning. We commissioned it, perhaps surprisingly, as part of a “New American” program, premiering it alongside works by Joshua Bornfield and Mary Koppel, and early and contemporary shape-note repertoire. I remember discussing the concept from the deck of my parent’s house in Northern Wisconsin, surrounded by white pine and spruce trees, Scott speaking to me from his new academic post situated in the woods of Maine. We were both interested in creating a piece that represented a vast natural landscape—and particularly the most isolated parts of this landscape—as a snapshot of a distinct American perspective. That perspective is both inherent in me, as a former resident of the vast grasslands of the Great Plains, and something I now must work to remind myself of as a Mid-Atlantic city-dweller.
The text by first-century historian Tacitus, particularly the third movement and its awe-struck reverence for the natural world, is that reminder for me:
They do not imprison their gods
Within walls, or represent them with
Human features; Instead, they consecrate
Woods and groves,
And they call by the name of reverence.
I have now listened to these words sung by Lorelei so many times that I easily and frequently recall them while I’m walking through the Maryland woods—one of my favorite ways to escape the human-centric world that spins around us. These words remind me of the ways my own definition of the divine and omnipresent have evolved, as has my understanding of what it means to be American. For me, and in this piece, these are not fixed ideas, but rather expansive and inclusive ideas that echo the expanse of this inimitable, boundless natural world that precedes and succeeds each of us in our brief existence.
Featured on the Album
Lorelei Ensemble
Beth Willer, conductor
Jessica Beebe
Sarah Brailey
Christina English
Stephanie Kacoyanis
Emily Marvosh
Sophie Michaux
Arwen Myers
Rebecca Myers
Credits:
Recorded August 8, 2021
Mechanics Hall, Worcester, MA
Produced by Jesse Lewis
Recorded by Jesse Lewis and Kyle Pyke
Mixed by Kyle Pike
Mastered by Christopher Moretti
I. Representation 03:33
II. Representation 03:21
III. Representation 02:16
Appendix 03:13