SKU: GI.G-CD-568

An ecumenical group originally formed to lead music and worship for Lutheran Global Mission Events around the country, Cross Culture now shares its gift of song with a wider audience through Songs of Faith from Near and Far! From the energy of African-American gospel songs to the simple message of inclusion in a Taiwanese hymn and the traditional Amazing Grace sung in the Cherokee language, this recording takes the listener around the world and back exploring the common bonds of human love, strength, and faith.  .

SKU: AP.48409

UPC: 038081552323. English. Traditional Spiritual.

A bluesy rhythmic motive stacks up across voices, creating a compelling introduction and scattered interludes for this hip interpretation of the African-American spiritual. Call-and-response verses give individual sections a chance to shine, and a brief descant plus some optional divisi add that final flourish. A great teaching piece for 2- and 3-part choirs.

About Alfred Choral Designs

The Alfred Choral Designs Series provides student and adult choirs with a variety of secular choral music that is useful, practical, educationally appropriate, and a pleasure to sing. To that end, the Choral Designs series features original works, folk song settings, spiritual arrangements, choral masterworks, and holiday selections suitable for use in concerts, festivals, and contests.

SKU: PR.114423980

ISBN 9781491136591. UPC: 680160689439.

Originally composed for solo cello, this work has been adapted by the composer in response to requests from violists. The melodic theme comes from the final chorus of Hailstork’s Earthrise, a profoundly bold cantata using Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” as text, and full of allusions to all four movements of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Hailstork’s Earthrise features a festival chorus singing in German, alternating with an African American chorus singing in English with vernacular verve. The two choirs ultimately unite to end the cantata together with “Draw the Sacred Circle Closer,” a translation of lines from Schiller’s “Ode to Joy.”.

SKU: AP.39792

UPC: 038081444536. English. Words by Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Always expressive and sometimes dramatic, this handsome gem tells a romantic love story as penned by famous African American poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar. Rich with musicality to bring out the softer side of your men.

About Alfred Choral Designs

The Alfred Choral Designs Series provides student and adult choirs with a variety of secular choral music that is useful, practical, educationally appropriate, and a pleasure to sing. To that end, the Choral Designs series features original works, folk song settings, spiritual arrangements, choral masterworks, and holiday selections suitable for use in concerts, festivals, and contests.

SKU: PR.144407290

ISBN 9781491135150. UPC: 680160687008.

Jazz luminary Ali Ryerson traces a unique and personal artistic path in this solo work. With an engaging form reminiscent of jazz charts (a dreamy introduction, a catchy, swinging head, and improvisatory-feeling 12-bar choruses), Ryerson’s music pays deeply-felt homage to Charlie Parker and other jazz greats, while maintaining an organic connection to the lineage of unaccompanied woodwind music in the classical tradition. Classical players will gain insight into jazz harmony, rhythm, and expression as they learn this knockout recital piece, while Ryerson fans in the jazz world gain an image of her musical mind in this fully-notated composition.
Jazz Dream, a jazz-inspired solo flute piece, was commissioned by Claudia Anderson for her Glass Ceilings project. Claudia once told me that playing jazz flute has been one of her musical ambitions. I daresay her performance of JD could very well break a glass ceiling of her own!Moved by the events of 2020, composing Jazz Dream became my way of honoring my musical heroes from the Black community, namely the jazz musicians who created this music and truly broke glass ceilings. As jazz shares its origins with the blues, both genres having originated in the African-American community, I decided on a 12-bar blues form as the framework for the piece.The opening theme gently draws us into a dream-like state, with a melody in slow motion and lines that linger. When the REM cycle kicks into gear, there’s an abrupt rhythmic shift that leads straight into a swingin’ blues. Idiomatic jazz rhythms abound, with blue notes galore – the tension notes that virtually define the sound of both the blues and jazz (i.e. the flatted third, fifth, and seventh notes of a scale in place of the expected major intervals).After several groovin’ choruses of a 12-bar blues in B(, often played as if the soloist is improvising, the blues modulates to the key of E(, and as a tribute to the great Charlie Parker (AKA Bird), I harmonically suggest the more complex set of bebop changes that Parker introduced in his composition, Blues for Alice. Often referred to as Bird Changes or Bird Blues, instead of the basic I - IV – V chord progression commonly used in the blues, Parker used a series of sequential ii-V progressions (and secondary ii-V progressions). With the addition of some tritone substitutions, a chromatically descending bass line deftly replaces the original I-IV-V root movement. This is the harmonic background I was hearing as I wrote this particular chorus.After my 12-bar nod to Bird’s changes, the introductory dream theme returns, now in tempo and with a straight-ahead swing feel. Variations on this theme follow, again to be played as if improvising, with the soloist once again bringing their own personality into the performance. This section builds to a climax, the music pauses, then modulates to C, with a return to the original blues theme. The energy and groove increase through the final flourish, where a blues line ends on the idiomatic flatted fifth.

SKU: HL.1140052

UPC: 196288115373. 6.75x10.5x0.029 inches.

Brandon Waddle's new setting of a favorite African-American spiritual, “He's Got the Whole World in His Hands,” coupled with the wandering refrain, “Let Us Cheer the Weary Traveler,” takes these traditional melodies and fills them with harmonic interest, a dynamic solo, and luscious piano accompaniment, like only Brandon Waddles can. As a unique feature, there's an optional orchestral accompaniment by Dominic Waddles. If you are looking for a powerful piece to equally feature your choir and soloist for a festival or concert, this is the work for your choirs.

SKU: EC.9280

UPC: 600313492808. English.

Wanting Memories is on Ysaÿe Barnwell's most frequently performed and best-known compositions. Her words speak to the power of relationships and how those relationships form and shape who we become as people.

SKU: GI.G-7758

UPC: 785147775805. English. Text Source: Psalm 51:10, adapt. CW. Scripture: Psalm 51:10.

Keyboard part is optional.   .