Product Description
Help fight the extinction crisis! Here's an important work for our times that's perfect for your nature/environmental program. It's an SATB (some divisi) a cappella choral piece with option soundscape, but stands alone with the singers making some nature sounds.
Extinction by Adrienne Inglis (ASCAP)
Soundscapes arranged by Seylon Stills in the audio sample
Text : An Extinction by Kim Stafford (https://www.kimstaffordpoet.com)
The poem An Extinction © 2022 Kim Stafford is unpublished and used with permission.
An Extinction by Kim Stafford
Not just the creature gone, not just the tattered feathers, dry leaf pressed thin.
Not just the rendering from memory, not just the lost-list growing longer, a shape and hue from the field guide fled,
not just a name that meant a life, a syllable that once was teeming glory, one bright flurry shimmering the sun.
No. No. No. Its one name gone from our happiness,
one breath lost from our respiration,
one thread frayed from our salvation,
one plank gone from the ark that carried us.
Be the songbird now and testify.
Be the butterfly hinge of gold.
Be the one with open hands these wonders to behold.
Dont let them fly.
Be the songbird now and testify.
Program note Commissioned by Inversion Ensemble for its February 2023 Planet Home concert, Extinction sets the poem An Extinction (2022) by Kim Stafford for SATB mixed chorus. The three stanzas of the poem get distinct musical treatment: the first some text-painting and dissonance, the second rhythmic parts underpinning canonic melodic lines, the third a rich chorale. During my work on this piece, I happened to be traveling by train. The pitches of the train whistle snuck their way into the score as a dissonant chord. A nature soundscape may sometimes accompany this piece, although the tongue click sounds create a bit of their own aural ecosystem. Drawing attention to the unfolding catastrophe of mass extinction, Extinction hopes to inspire humans to action to prevent further loss of species biodiversity.
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.