The title of "Ain't That News" is a tribute to the superb Staple Singers, who dang a piece by that name, not otherwise quoted in this chart. The opening seven measures are an adaptation of an old Paul Robeson 78. The rest of the piece is original material intended to pay homage to both the black church and black popo music, just one of the many genres that owes its soul to the spiritual. The composer states, "My goal is to allow even the most demure chorister to have at least a little taste of what it would be like to be Aretha Franklin." "One For Frost.." is a merging of modern diction with the ancient forms of counting song, nursery rhyme, round, or "catch," and the incantational folk songs that paid homage to the natural powers of this peculiar and beautiful world. Set to a beautiful old hymn tune from an 1855 collection, "When It Was Dark" offers much scope for phrasing and word painting as the singers recreate the setting from outside the tomb, and explore the psychology of one of the Bible's most famous and timeless characters, Mary Magdalene. "Chant for a Long Day" is inspired by two monophonic chants for women, the Mersiyet from Pakistan, and the "waulking songs" from the island of Barra in the Hebrides. The text is a depiction of perserverance and longevity, a life force out of the distant and unknowable past, balanced for a moment in the present, and then heading for a distand and unknowable future. The words evoke images of physical and spiritual survival common to many cultures, as well as the images of femininity and womanhood that are also shared by peoples from around the world. |
