Rise Up Shepherd and Follow

About the Christmas anthem Rise Up Shepherd and Follow

This lively anthem with piano accompaniment, Rise Up, Shepherd and Follow, has two verses. It begins in call-and-response style, with a soprano solo alternating with  the chorus answering. In the second verse, the men sing the call and the whole chorus sings the response. Each return of the musical material is set differently.

I found Rise Up, Shepherd and Follow in Ruth Crawford Seeger’s American Folk Songs for Christmas. Her source was Religious Folk Songs of the Negro, published in 1909.

Rise Up Shepherd and Follow is part of a larger cantata, Shepherds and Angels, with violin, harp, and tambourine.  Instrumentally, that set aligns well with Britten’s Ceremony of Carols or Susa’s Carols and Lullabies. Teach your chorus Rise Up Shepherd and Follow this year, and expand to Shepherds and Angels next season.

View and listen

Preview score  Click the big button to download a free perusal score. The watermarked PDF is disabled for printing.

Listen  The Master Singers of Lexington, MA sang Rise Up Shepherd and Follow in 2010 in the Shepherds and Angels version with violin and harp.

Purchase options

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1. Buy a single copy. At the top of the page, choose Single Copy as the music format, and click the Add to Cart button.

2. Buy printing rights for your whole chorus for one low price. At the top of the page, choose Duplicate for Ensemble as the music format, and click Add to Cart.

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