Meechan Music Chorals (on Brecht) - Meechan - Concert Band - Gr. 3

Composer: Peter Meechan
Format: Score and Parts
Instrumentation: Concert Band
Level: 3

Commissioned by Sam Taylor and the Sheldon-Williams Jr. and Sr. Concert Band, Regina.

Inspired by the short Brecht epigraph at the start of his 1939 Svendborg Poems ("In the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing About the dark times."), Chorales (on Brecht) was written around the time that a concert in my home city of Manchester, UK, was bombed, killing 22 concert goers. The reaction saw the people of Manchester taking to the streets, singing together, listening to poetry - art and love drowned out the darkness.

This piece features several small chorales, some reflecting on the dark times we are currently living through, and some painting the optimistic picture of the future that my city showed in the aftermath.