Concerto for Piano and Chorus
SATB chorus and piano solo | 15’
What if the chorus were an orchestra? This is the conceit of Concerto for Piano and Chorus. The piece acts as a piano concerto, but supported by a chorus instead. In each movement, the chorus plays the role of one instrument family within the orchestra: strings, percussion, brass. They emulate the techniques that each family of instruments might use (swooping glissandi for the strings, clicks and taps for the percussion, etc.), employing only a handful of phonemes for each movement. In Movement I, they are restricted to the buzzy, voiced nasals and fricatives - m,n,z, and v - of the strings; in Movement 2, it’s the percussive, unvoiced k,t,p, and s. Finally, in the Finale, the singers open to the glorious ohs and ahs of a wailing brass section.
Commission
Choral Chameleon (as part of the 2016-2017 Composer-In-Residence Program)
Performances
Choral Chameleon, Robert Fleitz, piano
