Equality - (2001)
Maya Angelou
for high or medium voice and piano
Originally commissioned for the Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus
This text remains under copyright and is therefore not fully reproduced herein.
You declare you see me dimly
through a glass which will not shine,
....
[ 6 pages, circa 3' 45" ]
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou is an author, poet, historian, conductor, actress, singer, songwriter, playwright, film director, and civil rights activist. Born in 1928 as Marguerite Johnson in a segregated rural area of St. Louis, Arkansas, she comes from a broken home, was raped at eight, and was an unwed mother at 16 years old. Throughout all these circumstances she still managed to become San Francisco's first black woman conductor, the first to have an original screenplay produced in 1971, Georgia. She has several volumes of poetry and some of her own music was recorded by legendary guitarist B. B. King. She has been nominated for an Emmy Award for her acting in Roots and Georgia, is fluent in French, Spanish, Italian, and West African Fanti, and has been the Reynolds professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. She served as the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and was appointed to the Bicentennial Commission by President Ford, and the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year by President Carter. She has published many best selling books and magazine articles, and in 1993 she wrote and delivered the presidential inauguration poem for President Clinton.
I was asked by the Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus to set these marvelous words, in an edition for men's voices, which they subsequently recorded. While all groups with some history of being oppressed in some way have struggled for their own freedom, this remains true in various ways around the world today, from the GALA organizations in the West to women's rights advocates within Islam, to so many more.
One might look upon political stances askance, for the struggle for freedom continues for so many subjugated peoples, enslaved in one way or another. Indeed slavery itself, abolished in the West through bloodshed and tears, is still practiced in the world today. Therefore Angelou's words have resonance far beyond any one group's perspective, for freedom is a universal dream opposed to the opposite nightmare of coercion, force and enslavement which has dominated the history of mankind -- male and female, young and old, of every race and religion.
"...to break down the barriers of prejudice and ignorance."
tessitura in the edition for high voice
The strophic character of this text is mirrored with a strophic musical setting. Between sections there becomes a broadening against which each verse is notated as slightly faster than the one before, in a sense of both urgency and strength to see this struggle through. The setting opens with the refrain of the poem, in order to prepare for the first stanza, beginning at measure 9.
The last stanza is prepared by a dotted rhythm and the extension of the text by repeating the last phrase. The last stanza begins in a higher tessitura than the preceding stanzas and with greater force.
The final statement rings out in the highest tessitura for the voice, underscored by a triple rhythm and key change from the minor key in which the body of the text is set, to the major, thereby pointing towards an optimistic and brighter future within the metaphoric language of this music.
tessitura in the edition for medium voice
I was informed by music publishers that Angelou through her representatives required a substantial advance payment to allow publication of this work, and therefore it will remain unpublished. If you have any questions about the work, you may contact the Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus for which I freely composed this setting without an advance payment, commission or other remuneration. In the making of art as in the expression of "equality," sometimes business matters should not interfere.
