Welcome
We invite all lovers of song to explore connections between poetry and music, between history and culture, through the work of American composers and poets. Song of America is a database resource where you can listen to songs, learn more about them, read their lyrics, find scores, and link to relevant Web sites. For more information about the Song of America radio series, click here: Song of America Radio Series.
-
Featured Composer
Gwyneth Van Anden Walker
Gwyneth Walker has written dozens of compositions for solo voice, setting the poetry of Wendell Berry, e. e. cummings, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, May Swenson, and Alice Walker, as well as several others.
Photo: Gwyneth Walker More
-
Featured POET
Anthony Hecht
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1967, Anthony Hecht's poetry deals often with dark subjects, such as the Holocaust and World War II, a war in which he served. Notably, his poems have been set as songs by Robert Beazer in his cycle The Seven Deadly Sins of 1979. Hecht's poetry is characterized by its formality, though is subject matter belongs distinctly to the 20th Century.
"Hecht is much like Wallace Stevens in his interest in music 'as a medium and transcendent force,' and he is especially influenced by 'the melodic intricacy of expression...'" (Poetry Foundation)
Photo: Anthony Hecht, 1947, public domain More
-
Hampsong / SongFest Collaboration
The Hampsong Foundation announces a new collaboration with SongFest, a training program for singers focusing on the art of classic song. Since 1996, SongFests founder Rosemary Hyler Ritter and John Steele Ritter have invited composers and teaching artists of the highest caliber to work with students and young professionals on the performance of song, especially American classic song. Through the Hampsong/SongFest collaboration, past materials from SongFest performances, including video and audio recordings of world premiere works by some of the most acclaimed American composers today, will be made available through the Song of America database as well as on the soon-to-be-launched new website of the Hampsong Foundation (www.hampsongfoundation.org). Click on "More" to learn more about SongFest. More
-
Setting the Historical Record With Song
Learning American history by listening to music may sound like a short cut, but when the teacher is opera star Thomas Hampson, it's more of a highbrow leg-up.
Mr. Hampson, the 56-year-old baritone from Spokane, Wash., is internationally known for his interpretations of Mahler and Verdi. But he's also a longtime advocate of American song: His Hampsong Foundation, established in 2003, undertakes projects that support the art of song, commissioning composers, funding research, hosting seminars and classes, and launching new-media initiatives. More
Have you read something interesting about Song in America--in a book or magazine, or online?
Submit newsPlease share it with us and
we’ll post it on this site.
Search Songs by
Our goal is to build and curate a comprehensive archive of American song that tells the story of our culture and nation, through the eyes of our poets and the ears of our composers. Launched in November 2009, Song of America.net is a project of the Hampsong Foundation.
-
Featured Book
A Chronicle of American Music: 1700-1995 By Charles J. Hall -
Featured ESSAY
Song of America: Diary of a Nation By Thomas Hampson -
MEDIA ROOM
- Master Classes & Lectures Learn more about American song by watching and listening to master classes and lectures about American song. View Media
- Interviews & Programs Explore American song with experts in the field while listening to excerpts and entire programs in this section of the Media Room. View Media
