She is One of Us Spotlight: Maori Songs & Jenny McLeod

Its concert week! All this week we'll be spotlighting different aspects of the concert that you will enjoy on Friday. Don't forget to purchase your tickets by clicking the Brown Paper Ticket link on the left.

Three Maori Songs, composed and arranged by Jenny McLeod

notes by Miranda Johnson

 As part of the ‘She is One of Us’ concert, the Wisconsin Chamber Choir will be singing three songs in the Maori language, composed or arranged by the New Zealand composer Jenny McLeod. ‘E Te Ariki’ (‘O Lord’) is an arrangement of a well-known Maori hymn, in this version with a descant. McLeod has arranged many Maori hymns for the tribe of which she is a member, Ngati Rangi. The tribe is Catholic and often performs at the annual ‘Hui Aranga’, an annual event that fosters a Maori Catholic community throughout New Zealand through dance and choral competitions. ‘Kia Hora te Marino’ is based on a traditional Maori proverb. It has been attributed to Rangawhenua, a late nineteenth-century prophet who peacefully opposed the land dispossession of Maori people in New Zealand. ‘Nau te Hau’ is McLeod’s own composition and lyrics. She explained to me recently that it is a vocal arrangement of the end them of the 1985 film, ‘The Silent One’, for which she composed the music. As she puts it, the music is accompanied in this version, ‘with some simple Maori words relating directly to the natural world, more or less along the lines of a hymn.’

           

McLeod is one of New Zealand’s leading composers and, although Pakeha (a descendant of white settlers), has long been involved in composing music around Maori themes and with Maori lyrics. Since becoming a member of Ngati Rangi, she has arranged many Maori hyms and is currently involved in the staging of an opera based on nineteenth-century historical events concerning Ngati Rangi leaders and others. She studied in Paris with Messaien in the late 1960s and was a Professor of Music at Victoria University of Wellington in the 1970s before giving that up to focus on composition and, later, writing about music theory.

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She is One of Us - Press Release

Wisconsin Chamber Choir presents:

She Is One of Us—Native American Composers, Poets, and Dancers

Friday, May 20, 7:30 pm

Trinity Lutheran Church

1904 Winnebago St.

Tickets: $12 advance/$15 door (Students $10/$12)

Available from Orange Tree Imports, Brown Paper Tickets, or www.wisconsinchamberchoir.org

Featured guest artists:

Brent Michael Davids, composer and crystal flute

Timothy Fish, dancer

Karl Lavine, cello

The Wisconsin Chamber Choir’s spring concert celebrates Native American composers, poets, and dancers, including music by Brent Michael Davids, Louis Ballard, Jean Belmont Ford, Jenny McLeod, and Antonín Dvořák, and a special appearance by Timothy Fish, a dancer from the Muscogee Creek nation. The concert, part of the WCC’s year-long exploration of “Music and the Natural World,” will emphasize humanity’s interconnection with nature through the powerful music and words of the WCC’s Native American guest artists.

The centerpiece of the May 20^th concert program is the choral work, She Is One of Us by Mohican composer Brent Michael Davids, on a text by Muscogee poet Joy Harjo. Davids is a renowned composer of symphonic, choral, and film music who was born in Madison, and grew up on the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican reservation in north-central Wisconsin. His music has been commissioned and performed by the National Symphony Orchestra, the Kronos Quartet, the Joffrey Ballet, Chanticleer, and The Dale Warland Singers.

Davids will appear with the WCC as a performer on crystal flute, a unique instrument featured in many of Davids’s choral works. According to Davids, She Is One of Us celebrates “the Earth and her resiliency despite human negligence. Sometimes sparse, sometimes rich, sometimes harsh, sometimes gorgeous, She Is One of Us uses many vocal techniques including whisper singing, speaking, and specific Native American vocal sounds.” As part of his residency with the WCC, Davids will also visit area schools.

Timothy Fish is a Muscogee Creek dancer who regularly appears in leading roles at Native American events in Wisconsin and beyond. His performance at the WCC’s May 20 concert will introduce the audience to the fascinating world of traditional Native American ritual and dance.

Alongside the performances by Brent Michael Davids and Timothy Fish, the WCC’s program includes other choral works inspired by Native American music and poetry, as well as music by aboriginal composers from around the world.

A prayer of the Tewa people inspired Sky Loom, a moving choral work by Kansas City composer Jean Belmont Ford. Sky Loom is scored for choir and a cellist “who walks with the singers like a companion, or a spirit that supports and illuminates.” Our performance will feature Karl Lavine, principal cellist with the Madison Symphony and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. The text of Sky Loom interweaves the words of the Tewa with excerpts from treaties recorded between Native Americans and European settlers. The composer writes, “There is an irony in the lack of correspondence between the treaty text and actual historical practice. Nevertheless, the words remain as a constant reminder of aspiration and responsibility.”

Widening the focus to include music from other aboriginal cultures, the WCC’s May 20 concert features a set of Maori songs by New Zealand composer Jenny McLeod. A former student of Olivier Messiaen and currently one of New Zealand’s leading composers, McLeod has become closely associated with the Maori people, whose texts and melodies she utilizes in the selections performed by the WCC.

In a bow to traditional choral repertoire, the WCC presents a rare, complete performance of Antonín Dvoák’s choral song cycle, In Nature. During an extended visit to the US in the 1890s, Dvoák championed Native American music and musicians, and repeatedly asserted that his own compositions were influenced by Native American music, including the New World Symphony.

Two shorter works round out the program: Now I Walk in Beauty, a round based on a Navaho prayer, and Hanacpachap, the first piece of polyphonic music published in the Western Hemisphere. Printed in Peru in 1631, this short prayer is composed in the style of a Latin motet, with words in Quechua, the language spoken by the ancient Incas and by millions of people today. The composer of Hanacpachap is unknown, but was likely a Quechua-speaking Native American student working at a church in Andahuaylas, Peru.

The WCC’s May 2011 concert is the capstone of our 2010/11 season which also included choral music about nature from the Romantic era, and a critically acclaimed performance of Haydn’s oratorio, The Creation. At our May 20 concert, together with our Native American guest artists, the WCC will present a rare, culturally significant opportunity to appreciate and participate in the rich traditions of our Native American fellow travelers on the road to an environmentally sustainable future.