Musical Musings 04-03: Songs of faith and justice with our Chancel Choir

Music Notes – Sunday, April 2nd

This week’s musicians are The Chancel Choir and UUCC Music Director Mike Carney

  

Opening Hymn: Profetiza, Pueblo Mio – Zárate Macias

Musicians are not strangers to the cause for civil rights, and Rosa Martha Zárate Macias is a heroic example. Zárate Macias came to the United States from Mexico in 1968 and has successfully combined her rich musical talent with courageous leadership in championing the rights of the Mexican and Latinx community in the U.S. She has performed benefit concerts in numerous countries of Central and South America as well as in Portugal and the United States. (from giamusic.com) In 1985, she was the cofounder of the California-based immigration and citizenship project Libreria del Pueblo, and from 1990–1993 she acted as cofounder of Calpulli, an organization that promotes and develops programs to aid disadvantaged people of Central and South American heritage. Profetiza, Pueblo Mio (#1016 in our Singing the Journey hymnbook) was written in 1975 and first sung at the II National Convention of Spanish Speaking Catholics in Washington, DC.  

 

The English translation of the song’s refrain is:

Prophesy, oh my people, prophesy one more time.

Let your voice be the echo of the outcries of all oppressed.

Prophesy, oh my people, prophesy one more time.

Announce to them the coming of a new society.

 

Centering Music: New World a-Coming – Ellington

One of the true legends of American music, jazz composer and bandleader Duke Ellington (1899-1974) was best known for composing dozens of jazz standards, including “It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)”, “I Got It Bad And That Ain’t Good”, “Mood Indigo”, and “Come Sunday”. “New World a-Coming” was Ellington’s theme song for the radio program of the same name that was broadcast on New York’s WMCA from 1944-1957. New World a-Coming was an important showcase for African-Americans and other minority groups and helped to sow the seeds of the Civil Rights Movement. Ellington later included this music as part of his larger 1965 work titled A Concert of Sacred Music.

 

Offertory Music: I Believe – Miller

“I Believe” is a 2012 composition by American composer and educator Mark A. Miller, who serves as Assistant Professor of Church Music at Drew Theological School and is a Lecturer in the Practice of Sacred Music at Yale University. The lyrics for “I Believe” come from an anonymous poem which speaks of finding hope and faith even in the darkest of times. The poem is said to have been discovered on a cellar wall in the Müngersdorf concentration camp near Cologne, Germany:

I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining.

I believe in love, even when I don’t feel it.

I believe in God, even when God is silent.

 

Closing Hymn: Siyahamba – South African folk song

“Siyahamba” (#1030 in Singing the Journey) is a South African freedom song that was one of the anthems of the Apartheid Era. Some scholars believe “Siyahamba” was composed around 1950 by Andries van Tonder (1882-1955), while others credit Anders Nyberg (b. 1955), who was likely the first to transcribe “Siyahamba” to the written page. Nyberg was musical director of the Swedish choral group Fjedur, and he discovered the song on a trip to Cape Town, South Africa. In 1984, Nyberg arranged the song for a four-voice setting and he and his choir helped to introduce “Siyahamba” to a worldwide audience. (includes material from uua.org)

 

Postlude: Four Spiritual Medley – arr. Morris

“Four Spiritual Medley” is an arrangement of traditional African American Spirituals by award-winning performer and composer Lea Morris (b. 1978), also known simply as LEA. The four songs included in LEA’s medley are “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”, “How Long?”, “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho”, and “When the Spirit Says Sing”. The four spirituals are arranged in partner-song style, where each song stands on its own but they can also be combined and sung in overlapping fashion, which is exactly how our Chancel Choir will be singing these songs for Sunday’s postlude.

                                          -Mike Carney, UUCC Music Director