Stick Time: Choral Confrontation

Art has been a vehicle for social commentary for millennia; from the bitingly provocative images on ancient Grecian pottery to hip-hop diatribes on the desperate realities of the 21st century urban landscape.

 

While a plethora of songs with stinging social commentary have been written over the ages, the chorus is not usually the musical vehicle of choice for composers seeking to explore challenging ideas.  The choral repertoire, however, is not without examples of settings of thought-provoking texts.

 

One example might be this work, “Five Ways to Kill a Man,” performed during the 2009 ACDA National Conference.