Bad TIme (to be being brave)

This is the live recording of the premiere of Stephanie Martin's "Babel: a choral symphony" on a text by Cori Martin. Lee Willingham conducts the Wilfrid Laurier University symphony and combined choirs on April 3rd, 2016 in the WLU Theatre Auditorium, Waterloo, Ontario, with soloists Sarah Amelard, Midori Marsh, Jamie Groote, River Guard and Dylan Langan, preparation by Paul Pulford and Gerard Yun. The full text of the poem is found on my blog:
http://www.stephaniemartinmusic.com/babel-the-poem-by-cori-martin/ 
and the score is available through the Canadian Music Centre.
http://www.musiccentre.ca/node/138861

The piece is scored for full orchestra (including extensive percussion) double choir, SSATB soloists. The poem is a masterful, modern reflection on the Biblical story of Babel, with marginalia in many languages.
The arc of the piece is like this:
1st mvt: Choir, Bass soloist, full orch  (The optimistic building of the first tower, its fall and the confusion of languages.)
2nd mvt (12:36) Choir, SS soloists, orch  (The people are confounded, and they lament their failures.)
3rd mvt (23:10) Tenor solo, strings, percussion, women's choir (An angry Britten-esque rant against a jealous God whose actions seem unfair)
4th mvt (28:45) Choir a cappella (A motet for art so beautiful it causes us pain)
5th mvt (31:07) Orch, mezzo solo (The turning point, when we resolve to build something better and lasting that finds favour with God)
6th mvt (35:45) Orch, choir, all soloists (A joyous conclusion, time will run back and fetch the age of gold)

Martin - Babel: A choral symphony

If you want autobiography, read an autobiography: these are just a bunch of songs.
//

But, once, there really was a guy; after a late night at the local bar (they had karaoke: I’m sure someone sang 24 Hours from Tulsa; hell, it might even have been me) I drove the very drunk little fella home. My idea of civic duty. He lived in his parents' basement and was keen to show me the things he loved. Out with a photo album: his motorcycle, his dog, his girlfriend. In that order. Then he took a wizz in a washing machine and passed out. And yet it was a shock when both girlfriend and dog took leave of him.

Dog Song

Have you ever lived in house infested with rats? I did once, and we developed a relationship of mutual stalking. They would rankle the walls with their claws and I would pound the place I thought they were with my fist. None of us slept while our song and dance act went on. I did put poison out, too. Listening to them dying in the woodwork was even less settling than them living there.
Sometimes rain heals, sometimes it hurts. The oily pools you see after rain? That’s part of your soul that got washed away.

Harvest of Rats/ Elegy

JC Martin and the Country Gents

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