UPDATE AUGUST 20 : Nous Sommes Un Seul People will be performed again on Sunday, August 25, 7 pm in the Nieuwe Kerk in Middelburg (NL).
Nous Sommes Un Seul People is my newest choral piece, the third one in a time-span of two years. The new piece is commissioned by the Nieuwe Kerk Gemeente (The New Church Congregation) and will be premiered on Pentecost, Sunday, June 9 at 7 PM. Location: Nieuwe Kerk, Middelburg (NL).
The piece will be sung by an ad-hoc choir and Karin de Boef on piano, conducted by Christian Blaha. Besides this premiere I might as well play one or two solo-pieces as well.
When I started the piece my original intention was to contradict two bibles stories. The first one about the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles (it ís a
pentecost piece!) and the second about the Babel failure. Differently stated, about being able to understand each other and not being able. I would be combining these lines with quotes from the
two last American presidents. Quotes from a radio interview with Trump, just a few hours after 9/11 in which he brags that he has now the tallest tower in NYC (!!). Extremely hard to believe, but
the man did that. The second quotes came from Obama's Official Announcement of Candidacy speech from 2007.
Combining all these sources, turned out to become a way to long piece for this occasion, so I ended up only using the Obama quotes, which - only because the sounds are so beautiful - I
translated into French.*
Below you can watch the two video's of Trump and Obama.
*with a bit help from Félice Portier
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