Name: Ione, Dead The Long Year From Three Classic Madrigals by werd_dog
Duration: 2 min 33 s
Description: Kirby Chamber Choir performing a piece by the Finnish Composer, Bengt Johansson

Kirby Chamber Choir performing a piece by the Finnish Composer, Bengt Johansson

Ione, Dead The Long Year From Three Classic Madrigals

"Assembly of the Souls" in a live recording from the premier, Boston, Sept. 2014: Etty BanZaken (voice) & Boston Music Viva ensemble, conducted by Richard Pittman. 
about the piece:
"Assembly of the Souls" was composed in the summer of 2014, during the violent wave of the Israeli-Palestinian war. Earlier this year, when I happily accepted BMV's invitation to compose a piece for a Jewish music concert, I had in mind a piece inspired by a specific kind of Jewish meditative melodies, traditionally performed in Hassidic assemblies to awaken people's souls for spiritual growth. But during this summer, spirituality seemed far. Once again, war and violence took over. And so I looked for texts that refer to the human nature, with our high moral potential, and our destructive evil potential. I am not a religious person, but I have found resonance to my feelings in the rabbinic dispute over the moral and immoral aspects of men: The Talmud tells that men's built-in duality is so troubling, that when God was about to create Adam, He saw the future wrongs of men and hesitated. Only when God used the quality of Mercy he could go on and create men kind. I have found another beautiful resonance in the Arabic text written by the 9th century Sufi Saint Al-Nuri, about the human heart: God had planted Hope and Love in it, and made this garden a home for His divine presence. Both Sufi mysticism and the Talmudic thought emphasize that it is men's own responsibility to choose what to manifest in the world – the destructive aspect or the compassionate, life-enhancing aspect.  
Resonance is an essential element in this piece. Resonance of philosophical thought, resonance of Hebrew and Arabic texts, and a musical resonance: the ensemble resonates the vocal line, sometimes by imitation, counterpoint and heterophony, other times by creating a static sound-space in which the voice can exist. 
The piece is built of three main parts: the first is sung in Hebrew, the second is sung in Arabic, and the third is sung without words. It is in the third part that I have quoted one of those Hassidic meditative melodies, from the Lubavich tradition, here interpreted as a painful lament. (-Eitan Steinberg)

Assembly of the Souls - Eitan Steinberg

Song by Brian Eichenberger, brand new VOCAL JAZZ arrangement by Jeremy Fox. (Vocals: Alec Smith, Ryan Howe, Kelsi Thrap, Katie Bethune, Heather Peters.) Ryan Howe is featured as the soloist on this demo. To obtain the sheet music for SATB Vocals, please contact Jeremy Fox at www.JeremyFox.net or by emailing Jeremy@JeremyFox.net . To get a copy of Brian Eichenberger's amazing album, get on iTunes (keyword: Eich Five) or go to www.ikemusic.com


Still - Published for Level III SATBB A Cappella Vocal Jazz

Crazy by Gnarls Barkley
Arranged by Craig Petrocelli

Crazy

Kirby Jazz Singers from the May 2012 Musical Memories concert.

I Am The Walrus

Both mesmerizing and dance-inducing, this 3/4 wordless samba from Esperanza Spalding has fun and angular lines and a great vamping groove from the ensemble. The rhythm section can be as full of auxiliary percussion as you like...shakers, bongos, timbales, shells, tamborine and more to color the underlying groove, on top of which the piano and bass have great material to play to support the vocalists. Certainly a strong closer for any talented groups' set!

Ione, Dead The Long Year From Three Classic Madrigals

werd_dog

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