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Programme Note

Text:
Traditional

First performance:
March 13 2013
New York Virtuoso Singers
Harold Rosenbaum, conductor
Merkin Concert Hall, New York, NY

Composer note:
A few years ago I was asked to arrange something for a concert of African-American spirituals. At first I though it was a funny thing to ask of me — I am not an African-American, I am not a Christian, etc. I had a hard time figuring out how to open a doorway to that world that would let me walk through it. What I finally realized was that if slowed the tune down and lessened its religious affect a bit the song started to reveal a kind of eternal weariness just beneath the surface, which I found emotionally very powerful. When Harold Rosenbaum asked me for a piece I thought I might try that again. I chose the tune Same Train, which I first heard in a way-too-cheerful arrangement by Alice Parker and Robert Shaw. I fixed that...

— David Lang