(Each week we look at a piece of useful repertoire from the ChoralNet Community Composition Showcase. A variety of voicings and levels of difficulty will be presented. Enjoy!)
Dreaming in Darkness by Robinson McClelland SATB divisi a cappella (click for PDF and AUDIO)
Level: High School or higher
Uses: General Concert Use, Expanding Harmonic Pallet
Program Themes: The Stuff of Dreams, Raising Children
This Piece Would Program Well With: It Takes a Village by Joan Szymko available from JWPepper and Sheet Music Plus and will be performed by Arlington Martin High School Chamber Singers at the ACDA convention in Dallas.
Short and sweet. Robinson McClelland’s Dreaming in Darkness is an excellent introduction to upper sonority harmony. Use this as a teaching piece to move your singers’ harmonic pallet out of the 19th century.
I really like McClelland’s use of perusal videos to share his works (click here). Combining this with a timed close caption track would be even better. Anything that saves a conductor time ranks high on my list, and having the score move along with the music so I can multitask and not be lost is a real plus. Check out Robinson McClelland’s ChoralNet profile for links to his interesting Facebook page and website.
Dreaming in Darkness is available from from the composer.
(Original publication: March 3, 2013)
Robinson McClellan says
Jack Senzig says