other notes - Geter

‍Cantata for a More Hopeful Tomorrow – For SATB Choir and Cello

Commissioned by The Washington Chorus (Fall 2020)

This five movement work for choir and cello is based on J.S. Bach's cantata, BWV 12 Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen and expresses the process of moving from fear to hope. The composer writes:

It is a fact that the pandemic has touched the Black community in a much more aggressive manner than other communities. To highlight this atrocity, I chose to pay homage to the ancestors and Black Americans by incorporating spirituals in this Cantata. There are five movements. The piece begins in a deep state of despair and moves emotionally upward towards a state of hope. The movements are as follows: Fear, The Prayer (I Want Jesus to Walk With Me), Breathe, The Resolve (There's a Balm in Gilead), and Hope (Poem by Walt Whitman "Continuity").
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2020 has been a tough year: not only because of the pandemic but because of the various other traumas that have been continuously inflicted on the Black community and our world at large. The recent events that have taken place will give our nation renewed hope and direction. Even though things may seem tough in the present moment, there is a light that shines toward the future.