Three minutes of excerpts from "An AIDS Quilt Songbook: Sing for Hope"
Entered in the 58th for BEST CLASSICAL COMPENDIUM
Over eighty artists donated their time and royalties, so that 100% of profits from this recording will go to amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, More info here: http://www.amfar.org/sing-for-hope/


An AIDS Quilt Songbook: Sing for Hope EXCERPTS

Ordinary  Michael Slattery, tenor
Music: Fred Hersch (8-time Grammy Nominee)
Lyrics: Herschel Garfein (Grammy Winner, 54th Grammys)

ORDINARY
Sixteen pills in the morning,
Fourteen pills at night;
Thirty pills each day, combined,
In magic ways still undefined,
Give me an ordinary life.

They can be shaped like a diamond or a depth charge,
Hieroglyphs and runes inscribed;
In colors bright like evergreen
and robin’s egg and tangerine—
My recipe for ordinary life.

One ordinary morning
In gratitude or gloom,
(You were still sleeping in the other room)
I took all my bins and bottles down,
Sat on the floor and circled them around me.

Soon, and without warning,
I was reciting all their names:
Raltegravir, Efavirenz
Zidovudine, Miraviroc
A pharmaceutical rosary, quite ad hoc.

Soon, and without warning,
I was reciting all their names,
And begging for the blessing they convey:
To let me stay with you forever,
To let us both grow old together,
Until I die in some ordinary way.


"Ordinary"   Michael Slattery (tenor)                    Fred Hersch (piano)

Prostitutes and other sex workers are uniquely vulnerable to HIV infection. In many developing countries with inadequate HIV/AIDS policies, grassroots organizations have sprung up that send former sex workers – often HIV-positive themselves – into towns and cities to distribute condoms, discuss safe-sex practices and promote testing among active sex workers. Despite the notable success of  groups like Aboya in Senegal, SWOP in Kenya and Naripokkho in Bangladesh, it remains US policy to deny overseas funding to any HIV/AIDS program that does not "actively oppose prostitution."

Monica Yunus No Giggly Time words & music by Herschel Garfein

Music: Herschel Garfein
Lyrics: Tom Stoppard
Krista River, mezzo
Mike Brofman, piano

Herschel Garfein

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