About the Music

Sounds Like Home Choir

Kellianna (feminist adaptation)
We are women at the full height of our power
This is the place and now is the hour
We are women at the full height of our power
This is the place and now is the hour
We recognise our sacred worth
We have the power to transform the earth
Prince Nico Mbarga
Sweet mother, I no go forget you
For de suffer wey you suffer for me yeah
Sweet mother, I no go forget you
For de suffer wey you suffer for me yeah
When I dey cry, my mother go carry me
She go say my pikin, wetin you dey cry yeah yeah
Stop stop, stop stop, stop stopMake you no cry again ooh
Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Tumhein dillagi bhool
jaani parey gi
Mohabbat ki raahon mein aa kar toh deykho
(English translation:)
You will have to forget
all about infatuation
Try embarking upon the path of true love
Palestinian folk song
Al-ya-dil ya-dil ya-di
Ya-bou leh-be-di-yah
Ya-ja-hel-ma but-e-lak
Lao kan om-re mi-ya
Lut-la-ha-ra-sil ja-bal
Wash-rif a-lal wa-di
Wa go-ul-ya mar-ha-ba
Nas-sam ha-wa bla-di
The Bengsons
We call for peace and liberation
Call for peace in every nation
Call for safety for our children
Call for justice and love
Bob Marley
One love, one heart
Lets get together and feel alright
One love, one heart
Give thanks to one another
And we will feel all right
Lets get together and feel alright
Nigerian Trad.
Oh my home, oh my home
When shall I see my home
When shall I see my native land
I will never forget my home
My children at home
My family at home
When shall I see my home
When shall I see my native land
I will never forget my home
(Traditional sea shanty)
VERSE 1
We’ll be alright if the wind is in our sails
We’ll be alright if the wind is in our sails
We’ll be alright if the wind is in our sails
And we’ll all hang on behind
CHORUS
And we’ll roll the old chariot along
We’ll roll the old chariot along
We’ll roll the old chariot along
And we’ll all hang on behind
VERSE 2
We’ll be alright if we can make this place our home
We’ll be alright if we can make this place our home
We’ll be alright if we can make this place our home
And we’ll all hang on behind
CHORUS
VERSE 3
We’ll be alright if we can lead with love
We’ll be alright if we can lead with love
We’ll be alright if we can lead with love
And we’ll all hang on behind
CHORUS

[Click A song name to see the lyrics]

Morfydd Owen

Nant-y-Ffrith is a picturesque wooded valley and stream on the border between Flintshire and Wrexham, complete with lush woodland, hidden waterfalls and the mysterious “Thunder Cave.”
Nant-y-Ffrith is home to various birds; during the 1950s, people would drive for miles to park their cars overlooking Nant-y-Ffrith and listen to the nightingales.
Glantaf paints the view of the River Taff from Owen’s home in Treforest (Glantaf literally meaning “bank of the Taf”). The stillness is tinged with melancholy; this piece was written shortly after a friend of Owen’s died and was buried in the cemetery there.
Beti Bwt is the main character in a Welsh children’s story. Beti Bwt went to the river to do her laundry but she realised she had forgotten the soap. She went home to fetch it but, when she returned, she discovered her washing had been swept away!

Morfydd Owen (1891-1918) was a Welsh composer, pianist and singer, born in Treforest to two amateur musicians who ran a drapery business. After attending Pontypridd County School, Owen won a scholarship to study at University College, Cardiff

After moving to London to study at the Royal Academy of Music, she formed two new circles of friends. The first was at the Welsh Presbyterian Chapel where she transcribed many Welsh folksongs. The second was the literary set centred near her flat whose members ranged from D. H. Lawrence to Russian émigrés, (including one who had been involved in the assassination of Rasputin.) The blend of idyllic folk-esque sounds with darker Russian intensity became her compositional signature in her short 26 years.

Frédéric Chopin

The Mazurka originated in Mazovia, an area near Warsaw. It began its life as an energetic rural dance full of leaps and spins before it was adapted for Polish high society and then spread across Europe.
While Chopin was living in Paris due to the political unrest caused by Russian foreign rule in Poland, the Mazurka became a means for him to express his national pride, and his support for his country’s freedom.

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) was a Polish composer and pianist born in Żelazowa Wola, son to a French immigrant and a Polish mother. Chopin completed his musical education and wrote his early works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of 20 and settling in Paris.

He encountered rural Polish folk music for the first time in 1824 as a guest of the father of a schoolmate in Szafarnia; the sound of Polish folk music went on to become a core feature of Chopin’s musical identity.

Fred Onovwerosuoke

Ayevwiomo is central to welcoming the birth of a child in Urhobo culture. An elder inquires about the new arrival from the parents and, if their response it positive, the news is spread and the village breaks into a seven-day-long dance of celebration, accompanied by the isologu (a bass thumb instrument, not dissimilar to a kalimba), a xylophone, and flute.

Fred Onovwerosuoke (1960-) was born in Secondi-Takoradi in Ghana to Nigerian parents and spent his childhood between these countries before moving to the United States. His research into the diverse musical traditions held within Africa has taken him to over 30 countries across the continent. He is founder and artistic director of the St. Louis African Chorus.

https://fredomusic.com/

Astor Piazzolla

The milonga is a parent dance of the tango. The dancers move slowly and sensually, occasionally punctuating the heavy heat with sudden staccato movements like a flick of the foot or a head snap.
Oblivion
Heavy, suddenly they seem heavy,
the linen and velvets of your bed when our love passes into oblivion.

Heavy, suddenly they seem heavy your arms which once embraced me in the night.
Later, at some other place in a mahogany bar the violins are playing our song again, but I’m forgetting.
Later, cheek-to-cheek separates, everything becomes blurred and I’m forgetting, I’m forgetting.
Brief, the times seem brief,
your fingers running all over my lifeline.

Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) was an Argentinian composer, bandoneon player and arranger born in Mar del Plata to parents of Italian decent. He spent much of his life between Buenos Aires, New York and Paris, forming ensembles and orchestras wherever he went.

Piazzolla is best known for spearheading the musical movement Nuevo Tango which fused elements traditional tango with elements from jazz and classical music. He proudly took inspiration from all forms of music - for example, he had lessons with the Hungarian classical pianist Béla Wilda (a student of Rachmaninoff) who taught him to play Bach on the bandoneon. Classical baroque music went on to be a pillar in nuevo tango.

arranged for piano by Saúl Cosentino

Saúl Cosentino (1935-) is an Argentinian pianist, band leader and composer born in Buenos Aires who grew up listening to his mother play tango at the piano. He studied with the tango pioneers Carlos García and Astor Piazzolla; many ensembles centred around the world continue to explore the future of tango through Cosentino’s music. https://saulcosentino.com/en/

Edvard Grieg

Hjemve is one of Grieg’s many Lyric Pieces (book 6, op. 57). He wrote this one while he was in France, perhaps while in active homesickness; Grieg writes a bright, lively springaar - a Norwegian folk dance - which he places in between of two more melancholy sections of yearning.

Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist born in Bergen. In 1863, he went to Copenhagen where he met fellow Norwegian composer Rikard Nordraak; this initiated Grieg’s first immersion in Norwegian folk music.

Grieg was one of the founders of the Copenhagen concert society, promoting works by young Scandinavian composers.

In 1899, Grieg cancelled his concerts in France in protest to an antisemitic political scandal . He became the target of hate mail but held his ground.

Margaret Bonds

Margaret Bonds (1913-1972) was an American composer, pianist, arranger, and teacher, born in Chicago and moving to New York to study at Julliard. Bonds eventually pursued lessons with classical music legend Nadia Boulanger, who upon looking at her work, said that Bonds needed no further study and refused to teach her.

Bonds was the first African American woman to perform with the then all-White, all-male Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and one of the first African American women to have her music broadcast on European radio.

Troubled Water is based on the spiritual Wade in the Water. The spiritual is part of the Songs of the Underground Railroad - work songs used by enslaved people in the nineteenth century to covertly share information for escape.
Wade in the water
Wade in the water, children
Wade in the water
God is gonna trouble these waters