|
Submitted by Kyle Zeuch
Community Choirs R&R Chair ACDA-PA President-Elect Designate Michael Bussewitz-Quarm has many wonderful new choral works, one of which, Still the Same Love, I enthusiastically endorse and would recommend for your Community Choir. This isn’t your typical love song. This piece reminds us that we must come back to loving ourselves and loving each other when searching for peace in our relationships and wellness in our lives. The captivating text by Euan Tait, concludes with the line “At the beginning of a healing. Still I Love. Still I Am Loved.” The theme could be well suited for a Community Choir spring concert and would fit well with a variety of other pieces to create an impactful overall theme to your concert. Musically, the piece is accessible, diatonic, and contains repetitive patterns, while still offering challenges of divisi, solos, and a few harmonic surprises. The piano accompaniment supports the vocalists but does not often double the voices, requiring singers to be confident. The treble tessitura could be a challenge for some singers but occurs in the louder sections of the piece allowing for supported singing. One of my favorite things about this song is the building of intensity to the climax through repetitive patterns, followed by a subsequent softer section that fades to the end. The patterns become hypnotizing as the words wash over the listener giving a unique experience that fits the text well. I encourage you to listen and see the score here: Still the Same Love From her bio: “The award winning music of Michael Bussewitz-Quarm engages singers and audiences through the soulful exploration of social and environmental themes around the world. Michael is passionate about effecting change through choral music, addressing topics ranging from art in post-civil war Raleigh-Durham, to gun violence, to the global refugee crisis. A centerpiece of each commissioning consortium is the opportunity to work with Ms. Bussewitz-Quarm virtually and through pre-recorded panel discussions with artists, authors, and thought leaders in the area of focus. Additionally, she offers an extensive catalog of existing work through self-publication (www.listenafresh.com) and Peermusic Classical. Ms. Bussewitz-Quarm won The American Prize in Composition (major works) in 2021 and will make her Carnegie Hall debut in 2023 featuring her work, "Where We Find Ourselves".” Learn more about Michael and her music at her website: https://www.listenafresh.com/ Comments are closed.
|