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3 Billion Birds
 Blues/Vocal • 2019 • Lyricist: Pamela Carter
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Instrumentation |
Piano, Mixed choir |
Scored for |
Choir, 1 piano, 4 hands, 2 pianos, 4 hands |
Type of score |
Piano-vocal score |
Key |
B minor |
Publisher |
Bronwyn Edwards |
Language |
English |
Difficulty |
Medium |
Duration |
5'10 |
This choral piece was sparked by the September 2019 New York Times article about the disappearance of 3 billion birds in North America in the past 50 years. Combining this theme of large scale destruction with small scale efforts to nurture our wild bird populations, specifically the sanctuary of my own back yard, where bird feeders and shelter abounds, "3 Billion Birds" offers many levels of performance, from a simpler version based on the notes on the score, to a more complex interpretation where the choir is afforded the opportunity to improvise. Two aleatoric sections offer the choir director scope to be creative, whether it is using half of the choir to create sounds of an empty sky / bird "graveyard" or creating a "canopy of chatter" using spoken words, sung names of bird species, or actually making bird sounds, or a combination of all of these. The piano accompaniment may also be adapted to four hands in order to cover the "flight notes" of the opening and third sections, or a harp could add these notes to a two-handed accompaniment. Alternatively, a competent pianist could play the "flight notes" and omit some of the additional bass notes.
"3 Billion Birds" is a great addition to an Earth Day program. The recording is a rough demo using my imagination.
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