Repertoire

Songs of (Re)imagining: The Border CrosSing series

January 26, 2022 by Shannon Marie Gravelle Leave a Comment

Dr. Ahmed Anzaldúa founded Border CrosSing in 2017, a Minnesota-based organization that “envisions fundamental change in classical music culture, so that every concert, every audience, and the artists on stage truly reflect the cultural reality in which we live.” For more about Dr. Anzaldúa and the beginnings of Border CrosSing, read this 2019 interview with Dr. Anzaldúa by the Minneapolis Interview Project. I chatted with Dr. Anzaldúa in early Fall 2021 about ADEIB, and you can find that post here. Also, if you have 40 minutes, take a listen to Dr. Anzaldúa on The Choral Commons podcast. I wanted to provide a few resources of his incredible work; he’s been sharing his voice and knowledge, and every bit of it is worth your time.

The Border CrosSing series is distributed by Graphite Publishing, and is relatively new (publishing started in October 2020). The Graphite website lists 10 pieces (as of 1/21/22), with some options for different voicings. The music spans from the 1500s to current composers, in Spanish or one of Latin America’s indigenous languages, and preliminary contextual information is provided on each octavo (enough context to ground and begin the conductor’s own research). The earlier music is provided in performing editions, not urtext, including score markings that will aid in performance today, so that the music will be accessible to those who aren’t early-music specialists. “Xicochi” (link is SATB, but SSA and SA is also available) might be a piece for a developing vocal ensemble (or, of course, a developed ensemble that has not yet sung a villancico) with flexible instrumentation.

Listen to “Amo” here:

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“Amo” was composed by Nico Gutierrez, a composer based in Chicago, IL, with text by the composer’s grandfather, Mariano Melendro Serna (1984–1989). For full text and translation, as well as access to a perusal copy, click on this link here (“Amo”). SATB (with divisi) and unaccompanied, “Amo” presents plenty of opportunities for emotional exploration through dynamic and tempo nuance in conjunction with text analysis. While the text is short, it leaves a lot to discuss and apply, including the three potential meanings of the final line (I love them/I love you/I love everyone).

Harmony shifts, both subtle and not, pull the listener into an emotional musical experience (or “real feels,” as I would likely say to my singers). The piece requires jumping in head first; between the first two measures, the music already moves from a more controlled emotion of the static first measure to something that feels a little less stable. It’s a beautiful moment, and it fits the application of the text. In measures 21 and 22, the Tenor 1 line cries in descending chromatics, and together with the Tenor 2 line, they do their best to express the pain or the joy of the memories referenced in the poetry (again, important text analysis work here). In measure 54, the brief respite on a D major chord on the word “sonreir” actually feels like a smile. The most obvious shift in harmony is from measures 29 to 30, and provides a clean but not overly pedantic delineation between poetic lines, as well as a shift between the past (memories) and present (crying and smiling in response).

My favorite moment, at least at the moment I am writing this, is measure 44 into 45. All voices are at the higher end of the written registers. The rising bass line adds movement to the already in-progress ascension of all voices. This, in addition to the fortissimo, is very striking and a bit emotionally uncomfortable. I love it.

Lots of good choral work can be done highlighting the moving voice in moments when the other voices are more static. And, of course, the repetitive but intentionally set “amo” at the end of the piece could be a fantastic emotional exercise for the singer: Why is the word “amo” repeated so many times? Are you thinking of a new memory each “amo,” or is the feeling getting more intense as you meditate on the same memory over and over?

Incredible music and rich history are available to the choral profession through the Border CrosSing series. I encourage you to spend time with all the music in the series, and check back later for other releases.

Songs of (Re)imagining

January 12, 2022 by Shannon Marie Gravelle Leave a Comment

As ACDA leadership works to expand their umbrella of belonging, it’s necessary for this blog to shift. The goal thus far has been to talk about transitioning into/out (ha) of COVID, understanding how choral professionals have navigated public health and the much-needed equity work being undertaken. Since this blog started last June, ACDA and membership have made changes. The Diversity Initiatives Committee continues to make many good and needed recommendations for growth within our ACDA organization. Our choral colleagues continue to share their work through professional developments and personal conversations. And many, many members have expressed a desire to learn and work within their own communities. In addition, our knowledge of COVID and the path it has taken has changed. Choral professionals are still having to make decisions re: singing and public health, but music making has continued.

While I will continue to talk to choral colleagues and share conversations in this blog, I want to address another need: Repertoire. When I work with choral professionals, one of the central topics I get asked the most about is repertoire, often for specific voicings, specific concepts, or specific themes. And now, as choral professionals are looking to have a more diverse representation of composers, text, and topics, repertoire questions seem to have doubled. With ADEIB as the continued lens, this blog will be sharing repertoire, composers to check out, and other programming ideas.

I encourage you to review what composers and titles you typically program. Does your programming create belonging within your program, or are voices excluded?

In the meantime, drop a comment below and let me know some of your favorite composers and repertoire. What are you looking for as you program? What are you hoping for?

One from the Folder: Repertoire Thoughts for Women’s/Treble Choir

April 28, 2021 by Shelbie L. Wahl-Fouts Leave a Comment

#69: Wednesday, April 28, 2021

What Comes Next? Repertoire considerations in the return to “normal”
Vidalita, arr. Diana V. Sáez
SA, piano or guitar

At this point in a normal school year, we’d be finalizing the performance schedule for next year. Students would be registering for ensembles for next year. We’d be solidifying collaborations, run outs, off-campus events, and invited guest artist concerts. Everyone would be looking ahead. Right now…it feels like we’re all in limbo. How can we best plan for fall, when we don’t know yet what fall will look like?

When my choirs are allowed to gather, rehearse, and perform again, as a full ensemble, for their first real indoor concert, it will be a wholly unfamiliar experience for them. Currently they’ve been doing music literacy work, plus rehearsing only in small groups, 8 ft apart and masked, in the music library, for 30 minutes at a time, for less than half our usual total weekly rehearsal time. No choir room, no chapel/performance space, no supportive acoustics, no social activities, no full choir, no performances.

It’s not “choir as they knew it.” Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like choir, just a “class.” Especially for non-majors that take choir as a 1-credit add-on elective, finding the joy in music-making right now, when we aren’t allowed to perform, or even rehearse, as full choirs is a huge struggle.

Ensemble- and community-building is a challenge, as is creating a beautiful, lyrical tone. Vowels are tough, and vocal placement is tougher. Long, supported phrases feel impossible. The farther apart students stand, the less they can hear of their neighbors, so the less they individually sing, and the less confidence they have – even moreso if we’re outside.

Students with previous vocal training, or those taking voice lessons currently, have found some ways to feel comfortable singing in a mask. Conversely though, students who came in with less experience, or with less/no formal vocal training, or maybe who are trying choir for the first time, get easily frustrated in masks. And understandably so. They are trying – so hard – but it feels like everything is stacked against them.

By next academic year, I will have two years of students who will have never sung in the ‘before-times’ while at my school, and two years of students for whom normal is a distant and very brief memory. Our last real performance will have been in December 2019.

My program, like many of yours, will have shrunk and dwindled in size and scope. It’s disheartening and demoralizing, to watch programs we’ve built start to crumble. Its soul-crushing to watch students leave your program because singing in a mask is not any fun, or because they miss performances, or because they are so tired and overwhelmed with the rest of life/school that they just don’t have anything left to give.

But, despite it all, moving on, and moving forward, is the only option.

So…when we finally can sing together, in our regular rehearsal/performance spaces, in our regular sized groups, for our regular length rehearsals, hopefully closer together, and hopefully leading to actual performances…what do we sing? We will still likely be masked, especially if we want to perform indoors, but if all the rest of the “normal” is back to normal, that’s not a deal breaker.

As I think about the future – I have some key repertoire (and non-repertoire) thoughts floating around in my head, that I think will benefit my singers and my program as we move forward:

Songs that are one, or two, or three levels of difficulty lower than I might have programmed in the before-times. Confidence needs to be rebuilt – in all levels of ensembles. Leave the one-on-a-part music, and complicated polyphonic selections, for another time. I love complex-rhythm selections, and divisi-within-small-ensembles, but this isn’t the right time, at least not for my choirs. Especially with lower numbers overall, easier is better. I may have a major or a strong reader here or there that is capable of something more complex, but that is probably the exception rather than the rule. Next year is about the health of the whole. Build back the confidence and belief in their own abilities.
Less music overall. Fewer pieces. Fewer concerts/events. Humpty Dumpty the Choir Program has had a great fall during the Covid-times. And needs care and nurturing to get put back together again. I know I want to jump head first into all the performances – just like we used to do and more. But I also know that won’t be as successful as a pared down schedule could be. I hope to be allowed back to a regular series of opportunities by our administrators, but consciously choose to do less than I would have in the before-times. Take the time to build community again. Build confidence again. Really support a true joy in singing for and with others, even if we are still masked. (Re)Build a sustainable program, not just moving from concert to concert.
Fewer choirs? When I started in my current university, there was one main choir, and an advanced off-shoot group. Eventually, I transitioned the program into three stand-alone ensembles – a beginner, an intermediate, and an advanced. And all three groups would rehearse together once a week also, creating a tutti ensemble to start/end the concerts. So, really four groups. And it worked. I loved it. The students loved it. But, you know what? I don’t think that’s sustainable next year. Or ideal. Or necessary. Or helpful. I need to reconceptualize my program for next year, to find what I think will benefit the current singers most. Maybe that’s fewer choirs. Maybe that’s more combined rehearsal/repertoire, and less divided among individual choirs. Maybe its re-working my existing rehearsal times in a different way. I’m still working out the details, but its definitely on my mind.
Repertoire that is lyrical. I frequently program fast/feisty/fierce rep for my choirs. I arguably don’t program as much lyrical music as I could. But one continued struggle this year has been getting long, lyrical, well-supported, tuned, confident phrases, out of masked, distanced, tentative singers. I for one know my singers need a return to simplistic, soaring, tuneful phrases.
Unison! (Re-)Building beautiful confident tone and a blended sound is another of my goals for next year. One of the best ways to do that (though not always the easiest!) is with unison rep.
Warmups. So many more warmups. And purposefully chosen, with clear intent. Ideally we all do this all the time – good solid warmups with good solid intent as to why each one was chosen. But with the chaos and disjunct nature of the current rehearsal structure/location/layout/numbers, sometimes that’s a tall order this year. However, if one of my main goals is to (re)build a beautiful tone, purposeful intentional warmups are one of the key ways to accomplish that.
Repertoire from a variety of cultures and traditions – lifting up the voices of historically- and currently-underrepresented communities as composers, arrangers, lyricists, poets, and culture-bearers. We can give lip-service to ‘diverse and multicultural repertoire’ – but that isn’t enough anymore. Our singers, especially as students in an educational setting, deserve well-reasoned, well-researched repertoire choices, not just well-intentioned. I feel like dissecting my repertoire choices needs to be wholly transparent – something my students can see and process along with me. Who is the composer/arranger, are they associated with the culture of the piece itself? Where did the text come from…what did it mean when first used…has the meaning changed? Can my students see themselves in the offerings in this concert/semester/year? There are so many questions to put here – that could be an entirely different blog.

A piece that hits many of the points above is “Vidalita”, a traditional northern Argentinian folk song, arranged by Diana V. Sáez for SA ensemble plus piano or guitar. Dr. Sáez is an expert on Latin-American choral music, and is known for her careful, quality compositions and arrangements. I feel confident in her authentic choral portrayal of this tune, especially if performed with a traditional classical guitarist. The song begins in unison, with both part I and part II singing together. Then it becomes two-part, with melody+upper oohs, or melody+lower oohs, or melody+harmony. The song is short, not overly long or complex. Its tuneful and hummable. Its in minor, with the occasional si and one fi. So, I could continue to work on my singers’ progressing music literacy skills, while also emphasizing phrasing, contour, shaping, and support. And give students an opportunity to sing a piece of Latin-American origin, arranged by a Latin-American composer. (Who also happens to be a woman!)

There will be a lot to re-build next year, in many if not all of our choral programs. Purposefully-chosen, carefully-selected repertoire can be a key component of that rebuilding. The transition will likely require us to think differently about our rep, and our concerts, and our overall structure. But its possible. Rebuilding will happen. We will sing together again. The music will rise again. The journey begins now…

Until next month!
-Shelbie Wahl-Fouts

Title:	Vidalita
Music Source:	Traditional northern Argentinian folk song
Arranger:	Diana V. Sáez
Date of Arrangement:	2016
Text Source:	Traditional northern Argentinian folk song
Subject(s), Genre:	Love, longing, life
Language:	Spanish
Voicing Details:	SA – first unison, then two-part
Ranges:	S: E4-E5 A: D#4-E5
Accompaniment:	Piano, or classical guitar
Duration:	~2:00 total
Publisher:	Boosey & Hawkes

Composer’s website, including perusal score, and audio https://dianavsaez.com/compositions/vidalita/

Dr. Shelbie Wahl-Fouts is Director of Choral Activities and associate professor of music at Hollins University, a women’s college in Roanoke, Virginia.
Email:
Bio: https://www.hollins.edu/directory/shelbie-wahl-fouts/

For a listing of all current and past blog entries by this author, click here.
For a spreadsheet of all blog posts and their repertoire, click here.

CJ Replay: An American Mass

March 29, 2021 by Amanda Bumgarner Leave a Comment

The December 2020 issue of Choral Journal is online and features an article titled “An American Mass: Celebrating Our Shared Music In An Ancient Form” by Carlton E. Kilpatrick III. You can read it in its entirety online at acda.org/choraljournal. Following is a portion from the introduction

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The Mass is a treasured form in the Western canon of music and liturgy. A celebration of the sacrifice offered for the forgiveness of sins in the early Christian faith, it is still part of the worship in modern Catholic denomination.

Settings of these ancient texts have been continuously performed both in liturgy and in concert for hundreds of years. From plainchant settings by anonymous monks to the high drama of majestic settings by Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn for chorus, soloists, and orchestra, the Mass text continues to provide inspiration for composers.

Mass settings appear less frequently among the non-idiomatic compositions of Black composers. Marques Garrett’s online resource of “Non-Idiomatic Choral Music of Black Composers”1 identifies fifteen, only a few of which utilize the forces of mixed choir and orchestra. When the search is stretched to idiomatic music, defined here as gospel, spirituals, jazz, hip-hop, and rap (among others), more examples exist, including the well-known Gospel Mass composed in 1978 by Robert Ray.

In that same year, André Thomas, a first-year doctoral student at the University of Illinoi–Champaign–Urbana, performed as a pianist and singer in the premiere performances of Robert Ray’s newly composed Gospel Mass.2 Some forty years later, Thomas would find himself surrounded by signs that he should pursue a Mass project of his own. The resulting work blends both the idiomatic and non-idiomatic aspects of Thomas’s compositional oeuvre, resulting in a work that is in his unique voice—an American voice.

Mass: A Celebration of Love and Joy is written in a Missa Brevis format with a complete Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei in English translation.

NOTES

1 Marques L.A. Garrett, “Beyond Elijah Rock: The Non-Idiomatic Choral Music of Black Composers,” accessed September 21, 2020, https://www.mlagmusic.com/research/beyond-elijah-rock.

2 Details about Thomas’s life and the writing of the Mass come from an interview with the author conducted in July 2020. Details about the Negro spiritual can be found in André J. Thomas, Way Over in Beulah Lan’: Understanding and Performing the Negro Spiritual (Dayton, OH: Heritage Music Press, 2007).

One from the Folder: Repertoire Thoughts for Women’s/Treble Choirs

January 1, 2021 by Shelbie L. Wahl-Fouts Leave a Comment

#67: Friday, January 1, 2021

2021: The Year Ahead…

I suspect that many of us are in a similar place right now: still reeling from the challenges of the semester/quarter/season that just finished, and overwhelmed with contemplating the one that is very soon to come. On top of that, we find ourselves divorced from our regular year-end concerts, holiday performances, and religious musical traditions. And, quite possibly, spending hours in front of a computer doing music-adjacent work for a virtual song/project/concert, but without any of the actual community music-making that feeds us as musicians. And that’s just the choir-related part of things! Suffice to say, it’s been a rough 2020 all ‘round.

So…what should I write on this first blog of 2021, on New Year’s Day no less?

The old adage is: “The show must go on.” But I’d like to propose an update: “The show will go on.” Somehow, some way, music will find a way to continue. Group music-making of all kinds has been hard-hit this past year, choral music in particular. There are so many questions for the next months ahead, which vary drastically depending on your state, your type/level/age of ensemble, your audience, vaccine availability, etc. The “how” of things will look different for each choir and each director and each school or program.

But the bottom line is this – at some point in the future, it will be safe to sing again. And people will be drawn to that – singers and audience alike. The show, in fact, will go on. (Just thinking about that future concert, even just a future “normal” rehearsal, makes me tear up a little.) It is so hard to see that far forward right now, when we’re all in the middle of the weeds, but it will happen.

When that day finally comes, we need to be ready. For that inevitable beautiful, amazing, and magnificent future time, I have a few repertoire suggestions from past blogs. Uplifting, empowering songs for that first concert, or that first season. Works about the beauty of music and the beauty of life. It will take a lot of work and patience to rebuild our programs, but those first beautiful notes of group singing will be more than worth it. And I for one cannot wait.

“Breakable” by Jenni Brandon
Text by Annabelle Moseley
SA, piano

“I Started Out Singing” by Jocelyn Hagen
Text by Naomi Shihab Nye
3pt Treble, piano (or piano & string orchestra)

“Be Like The Bird” by Abbie Betinis
Text by Victor Hugo
5-part canon

“Leave My Heart Its Songs” by Dominick DiOrio
Poetry by Amy Lowell
SSA, piano, two violins, viola

“Kidsong” by Stephen Caldwell
Traditional text
SSA, piano

“Music of Life” by B.E. Boykin
Text by George Parsons Lathrop
SSA, piano

To see all my repertoire blogs [67 and counting!], click here.
To see a spreadsheet list of all blog posts and their repertoire, click here.

Goodbye to 2020. Hello to a happy, healthy, and reinvigorated 2021.

Until next month!
-Shelbie Wahl-Fouts

Music and Masks

December 4, 2020 by Donald Patriquin Leave a Comment

Until early 2021, I am gifting to conductors – in PDF format – fifty of my choral works exemplified in the two videos below. This is part of my 4C Project: Choirs and Conductors Combating Covid-19 which also focuses on two very safe Canadian and US Rehearsal/Audience and Singer’s masks for use or fundraising.

Why the combination of the two– masks and music? To answer, first the mask:

I am intensely interested in face mask physics as I was trained as a biologist and worked in the field briefly before taking the plunge into music generally, and composition, conducting, performing (organ) and education specifically. Biology has a great deal to do with physics, whether it is water flowing ‘uphill’ from the ground to the top of a tree or the evolution of the enclosed air layer in an egg that physically cushions its delicate contents when it falls from a hen’s hind end– to name just two of thousands of examples in the biological world.

Likewise, the construction of a safe mask has much to do with physics, which drew me to a two-month investigation of mask safety in general, and two specific mask types in particular. The first is the recent SING-SAFE Singer’s Mask created by Dr. Kym Scott, Director of Choral Activities and Assistant Professor at West Virginia University School of Music. This mask was tested at every step of its evolution – particularly for fit and filtration efficiency – by researchers in the university’s Center for Inhalation Toxicology.

The second mask, the ‘Solid Colours Canadian Toggle’ is a Canadian product which has more than kept up with recent recommendations for safe mask construction. I like to think of this colorful mask collection as Rehearsal & Audience masks. The ‘Solid Colours Canadian Toggle’ masks recently jumped up from 300 threads per inch – very common in off-the-shelf-masks – to 600, just about doubling mask efficiency. The patent-pending ‘toggle’ holding the four braided adjustment strings for each of the mask’s four quadrants, ensures excellent all-around fit.

Four ‘Solid Colours Canadian Toggle’ Masks

Also downloadable are four posters designed specifically for The 4C project by my colleague and me. These ARE both ‘different’ and persuasive, as they present the pandemic from the Covid-19 virus’ point of view. I find myself always washing my hands, as the sight of a mere piece of soap conjures up this scary image! As for parties– not right now, thanks!

At one point during the past summer, I introduced the two mask inventors to each other, and Canadian Toggle met Safe-Sing! Their creators, like their masks, were obviously a good ‘fit’ and the US-designed mask is now also being manufactured in Canada by the makers of the ‘Solid Colours Canadian Toggle’. All this and much more, including information on mask testing, may be found at https://madmimi.com/p/6767411/preview.

Where does music fit into all of this? Simple, really– it is a gift in appreciation of the choral community that has given me – and so many – so much. This community has been, to a large extent, devoid not only of music but funds to purchase it. There are fifty totally gratis works from the A Tempo Music Index (a catalog without prices) which may be downloaded immediately and performed at any time. These include the entire World Music Suite Three (except for two published by Cypress Choral Music), also a setting of Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep – dedicated in particular to those who did not survive Covid-19. Also included is a vibrant concert opener Tsimshian Welcome Chant (SATB, SSA & TTBB) from the Tsimshian First Nations of Canada’s Northern British Columbia and USA’s Southern Alaska, along with a short, nostalgic closing work A Gaelic Blessing.

Additional gratis music from the A Tempo Music Index may be chosen if you order masks.

All gratis A Tempo music is free only until early 2021, as the entire Index will be in the hands of a distributor – though still available from A Tempo Music – after that time.

World Music Suite Compilation

Tsimshian Welcome Chant

For further information, I may be contacted at .

The author’s views and opinions are his own, as are those of all ChoralNet bloggers. ACDA is providing comprehensive, expert-informed, regularly updated information about singing safety and best practices for rehearsals during this difficult time on the following web page: https://acda.org/resources-for-choral-professionals-during-a-pandemic/.