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