Product Description
Five-movement work for seven female voices (3 sopranos, 3 mezzos and 2 altos) and ensemble (flute, oboe, clarinet, percussion, piano, viola, cello and double bass)
In August 2013 Peruvian choir director Paloma Bascones asked me to compose a cantata for the Josep Soler Music Festival. I then assembled various texts from different sources, cultures, and languages (Latin, Ancient Greek, Ancient Egyptian, Sanskrit, Sumerian, Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiian, Navajo, Cherokee, Nahuatl, Quechua, Spanish, German, English) and created five texts with excerpts of them, each text focused on a particular element: wind, fire, water, earth and the quintessence. A specific request from Ms. Bascones was that the work be related to a collection of medieval music pieces that she referred me to. For this reason, Alchimia makes use of some harmonic and melodic features of that style, combined with modern forms and techniques, as well as some special effects made from everyday items, and deals with all of these in a way that conveys the sense of a kind of magical ritual, a ritual to call the five elements of antiquity and bring part of their essence to our time.
This product was created by a member of ArrangeMe, Hal Leonard's global self-publishing community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters. ArrangeMe allows for the publication of unique arrangements of both popular titles and original compositions from a wide variety of voices and backgrounds.