Juvenilia - Stories 2009

At their Stories 2009 concert, Òran presents the world premiere of a set of two pieces by their conductor, Kathleen Skinner -- each setting texts written by Òran members at age 8.

Composer's Note: At the Òran retreat in November 2008, the choir took part in a group ice-breaking activity: each member was to bring, and read aloud, a masterwork of literature from his or her childhood writings. The result was inspiring, and I took it upon myself to set two of these gems to music for the choir's 2009 Stories concert. Juvenalia has two movements. The first, a setting of Jennifer McMillan's poem Love, is a choral parody of popular contemporary North American choral composers, particularly Eric Whitacre (one of Òran's favorite composers). With its too-literal word-painting, sentimental close harmonies, and overuse of modern choral techniques, Love is dedicated with great affection to Jennifer and her husband, John. The second piece, Unicorns Are Magic, is a setting of a short story penned by soprano Erin Lange when she was in grade three. Florid pianistic accompaniment in the style of the Muppets, shameless cribbing off of better composers, and judicious usage of narrative styles flesh out the hyper-feminine tale of a baby unicorn and her none-too-patient mother. The piece is dedicated to the ever-patient and ever-lovely Ruth Lange.

The concept behind Juvenilia is inspired by the podcast "Grownups Read Things They Wrote As Kids".

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Juvenilia
• Òran
• Kokopelli
• unicorns
• Stories
• Edmonton
• choir
• Canada
• Kathleen Skinner

[Fereishte]

Awesome!



[trees1]

such good harmonies

[quatrian]

Whoever posted this should tag more. things like "kokopelli" "unicorns" and whatnot.

[Blenchington]

And I thought I'd never see this again! All hail youtube! :)

[illmallard]

So much love love love for this! :) Unicorns are magic FOREVER! Hahaha....

Haha! It's really fun to hear the audio preview guy say "unicorns are magic"... you know you wanna try it!

[jenkinghorn]

bahahaha! This always makes me laugh!