All The Rowboats by Regina Spektor SSAATTBB - Digital Sheet Music

SKU: A0.1735082

Words and music by Regina Spektor, Arranged by Kirsten Duncan. Scored for contemporary choral SATB divisi, a cappella. A4, 16 pages (including covers). Published by Shrub Creative. Item number 2025-03. ISMN 9790900969965.

This choral work by Kirsten Duncan is an arrangement of ‘All the Rowboats’, the first single from Regina Spektor’s sixth album ‘What We Saw from the Cheap Seats’, released in 2012, with an introductory ‘Promenade’ from Mussorgsky’s 1874 ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’.

It is an appealingly quirky song “lamenting the captivity of masterpieces destined to spend eternity locked away in museums”*. Spektor has been described as “an artist whose sense of whimsy never excludes the possibility of real-world despair”**. ‘All the Rowboats’ is certainly an unusual story for a pop song, ripe for a playful choral arrangement. With Spektor’s Russian heritage, it seemed appropriate to ‘Promenade’ with Modest Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’, while all those rowboats endlessly “trying to row away” called for the round-and-round of the well-known children’s canon ‘Row row row your boat’, “but in a brushstroke of paint they are stuck”.

Why choose this arrangement? It is composed for intermediate to advanced mixed adult choirs (SATB divisi) without any accompaniment. In a contemporary college a cappella style, the sopranos lightly ‘row row row’ over the rhythmic bass line while the altos lead the melody, with harmonic interludes. It’s a fun, storytelling mash-up that builds to a somewhat chaotic climax, closing with the drifting away of the boats still rowing. It would be an energetic, diverting piece in any choral performance program.

Kirsten Duncan has had a lifelong passion for choral singing. Now based in Canberra, Australia, she has performed with Gaudeamus (Judith Clingan), Hamburg International School (ISH) Singers, the choirs of Christ Church St Laurence Sydney (Dr Neil McEwan), The Resonants (Helen Swan) and others. Kirsten started composing choral music in 2015 with a penchant for narrative a cappella works with an often quirky Australian flavour, contributing to the musical community that has been a stabilising thread throughout her life.

Please register performances or recordings of this work with the appropriate performing rights body, and also visit shrubcreative.com.au to notify the composer and find more works by Kirsten Duncan. Thank you, and enjoy the music!

This arrangement Copyright © 2025 KIRSTEN DUNCAN. All rights reserved. A catalogue record for this work is available from the National Library of Australia.


* Lindsey, 2012, ‘Art Elsewhere: Regina Spektor’s All the Rowboats’, Things Worth Describing
** Deusner, S, 2013, ‘Regina Spektor: High Fidelity’, American Songwriter.