Carols After a Plague (2021)
Urgency, Tone-Policing, Resolve
Commissioned by The Crossing
Total Duration: 11m
Urgency: 4m20s
Tone-Policing: 2m20s
Resolve: 4m20s
Music: Shara Nova
Text: Shara Nova
Available individually, or as a set of 3
These pieces have intentionally open language so that you may program them in various ways. Initially the songs were given the context of anti-racism, but later have been programmed within a setting of songs about the extinction of bird species. The meaning of the words changes given different contexts, and I trust that wherever you choose to program these songs, the meanings will only continue to expand further.
PROGRAM NOTE:
May these songs be a small contribution to a culture of healing. Of slowing down our pace and demands for production. Of normalizing conversations about racism. Of learning to notice the cultural habit of tone-policing Black women. And be a call to come back to the commitment that we may have made to join the Black Lives Matter movement when George Floyd was murdered, but then we grew weary of the fight for equality for various reasons. May we resolve to lean into our discomforts and bend our wills to work evermore for a harmonious ecological relationship and a just democracy.
I want to acknowledge the work of Resmaa Menakem and his book “My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies” and the impact his teaching has had on this music.
PURCHASE SHEET MUSIC:
SSAATTBB
$40
SSAATTBB
$40
SSAATTBB
$40
(Urgency, Tone-policing, Resolve)
SSAATTBB
$100
If you need financial assistance to purchase sheet music, please send us an email.
TEXT/LYRICS:
URGENCY
Take care of yourselves and each other as you sing, as you listen
to each other.
In the beginning
there was the sound of cymbals crashing.
And in the end all things will drift away
just as a noise disappears into silence.
While here in the between time you are in a rush.
How is it that it came to be?
How is it that you are able to imagine
before and after time?
How is it to slow down time
and wander and wonder out under the sky.
TONE-POLICING
Silence not Holy Black Madonna
Mother of All
Offer sacred praise to her
If not, thy tongue should silence give
Holy tone she is
Wholly listen in
RESOLVE
I wish you great joy in the perpetual discomfort,
in the shifting of the paradigm.
There will be no ease for a while.
What is your question?
Be not discouraged, do not fall into numbness.
Resolve to increase your discomfort,
and thus attain a calm body.
Be curious of one another.
Scribe the shared truths of history.
Reap the reward, truth.
Do not abandon high ideals.
Do not run to distraction.
Do not run from your discomfort.
Be curious.
Return to your commitments.
Increase your discomfort to find your joy,
and live humbly under the sun.
