Revolution Songs
Settings
of Revolutionary War era songs for Soprano, Violin, Cello, and Piano
In early March, 2026, my long-time collaborator Eric Pritchard
asked me to arrange some Revolutionary War songs by Francis Hopkinson for
soprano and piano trio. This was to be performed at Duke University at the end
of May at a concert celebrating the 250th birthday of the US of A.
While these are patriotic songs, I thought I would get a start by setting
pro-Tory lyrics by Jonathan Odell (1737-1818) to his song “The Congress” from
1776. Odell had a lot of fun publishing poems against the Revolution and in support
of the Crown, and for his efforts had to flee to Nova Scotia and then to New
Brunswick, as so many others did in those days. The original song used the tune
“Nancy Dawson”, which I didn’t use at all in this work.
photo: Jonathan Odell