Unity in the Community with the Afro-Semitic Experience and your Choir
Wouldn’t it be extraordinary for the Afro-Semitic Experience to do something musical and creative with your choir? Over the past 20 years this group of world music jazz musicians has partnered and performed with choirs and ensembles far and wide. Just recently we collaborated with three different choirs: a church choir, a synagogue choir, and a college acapella choir. We developed a unique and group specific program with each group. Our collaboration included conversations where we developed the program. We talked through possible pieces that would work well together, and we suggested some of our pieces and in turn the choir directors suggested pieces in their repertoire that we accompanied. Our rehearsal time is always limited, but because everyone is preparing and prepared we manage to create something special in just one or two rehearsals. This past February we gave a performance at Dickinson College where we collaborated with one of the school’s a cappella choirs and some instrumentalists. For that event, we put together a performance of our song, Unity in the Community. The rehearsal was certainly not long enough. It was hectic and disjointed. But the result was great when everyone came on stage to play that piece and as that moment where we all came together and created genuine Unity in the Community, it was the highpoint of the evening.
So, what do you think? We have songs in our repertoire that have parts arranged for choir and we have some pieces that have ensemble parts that would allow us to do something with a chamber orchestra or even a concert/big band. Can we bring our songs of unity to your Community?