Callings and Pictures – Resource Pack

CALLINGS

A friend and colleague was helping me to source public domain text to set to music for this BLM piece. However, she was so inspired by the nature of the commission that she, a white Italian woman, offered some lyrics of her own with no expectations. The subsequent lyrics resonated so much with my personal experience as a black person that I felt compelled to set them.

This piece should have a haunting, legato quality, leading to a sudden brightness of sound at bar 39, as we reach a major key for “all the colours disguised in me”.

PICTURES

A snapshot kaleidoscope or photo album of the countless stories that form the one big story of BLM and of common humanity. At first, the pictures are of everyday people, then we move into the more iconic, including the defiant fist (gold and silver medallist’s black power salute at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics), the seat on the bus (Rosa Parks), the microphone of dreams (Martin Luther King Jr’s famous speech) and the Little Rock Nine (the first black students who had to cross protest lines to receive their rightful education in the newly de-segregated Little Rock Central High School in 1957).

This piece should be light with a rhythmic bounce throughout. The dynamics in the middle 8 are quite layered. Think of this as a repeated section sung 4 times, book-ended and punctuated by “The defiant fist” which is always loud. The 1st time round, the focus is on alto 2’s and basses singing “the seat on the bus” etc., the 2nd time the focus goes to sopranos (“the men of bronze in a line…”). the 3rd time to the first altos and tenors (“box braids and locks” etc.) and the last time all parts are at the same dynamic to produce a veritable kaleidoscope of sound.

This resource pack contains the full score plus a score for each of the separate songs, a lyric sheet, a sheet about the lyricists and full audio learning tracks for each part, as well as the ensemble recording which you can preview above.   The song can also be sung as a full SAATB version or an SAA version for upper voices only and the audio tracks are presented accordingly. 

This resource pack is licenced on a ‘per copy’ basis, where a copy should be purchased for each member of your choir.  For larger choirs, an unlimited licence is also available from the button below.

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