COMPOSER
MARGOT DEAN
Music for Choir
Blue Whale Heart Song
Blue Whale Heart Song holds special memories for me, written in two weeks about a single blue whale, whose song touched me in such a way that I added its tune to my piece.
Listen on Bandcamp: Sing to the Moon My Sweet Bassoon
Watch video on YouTube: Sing to the Moon My Sweet Bassoon
When Sailing the Sonic Sea called for composers to create a piece using recorded sounds of underwater creatures and oceans, my mind pictured a choir in full voice, singing beside the whale, and I felt the excitement of an awe-inspiring encounter with these huge, majestic residents of the sea.
Sailing the Sonic Sea Symposium explores the changing sounds of the ocean and how these sounds are affecting the marine life.
To honour this massive blue whale who took my heart (listen for the heartbeat played on the bass drum), I present to you Blue Whale Heart Song.
A cappella SATB choir, no lyrics, with bass drum and blue whale soundtrack
Duration: 3'51"
Notes for choir director:
Choir sings 'aah' throughout, no lyrics.
The choir is accompanied by an MP3 digital track, easily playable from most devices.
Two options are available for the digital track:
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Blue whale and bass drum
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Blue whale only, if a live bass drum will be used.
The score includes cues for the whale and cues/playing instructions for the bass drum.
Commence playing the digital track one bar before the first choir entry, ensuring the track is audible to the audience throughout.
It is recommended to use a silent metronome (visual, vibrating or in-ear) at the given tempo to maintain sync with the track.
There are track counts at the beginning and towards the end of the score.
Licencing information:
Blue whale sounds spliced into Blue Whale Heart Song with no changes and sourced from the Ocean Networks Canada SoundCloud page: https://soundcloud.com/oceannetworkscanada/blue-whale-song
Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en
In the Heavenly Hour
"In the Heavenly Hour aims to lift us up, take us to a glorious high and leave us with hope and beauty resounding.
We are thus empowered to lift our world on to a higher plane."
A cappella SATB or SA choir
Duration: 6'30"
Lyrics and music by Margot Dean
‘The heavenly hour’ is known as a time of ethereal, unnerving beauty in the twilight before nightfall. Perhaps we are in the heavenly hour right now, with greenhouse gases forming in the heavens above us and our ‘midnight hour’ fast approaching.
It is a momentous time as we sense the warming power of the air amidst changing weather, and we ask ourselves, what type of world would we want to live in?
The choir hums, like a mother rocking her child, giving comfort. We draw in closer together and hear the heartbeat of time, challenging us to greater things.
In the Heavenly Hour aims to lift us up, take us to a glorious high and leave us with hope and beauty resounding. We are thus empowered to lift our world up and on to a higher plane.
Lyrics:
A thousand worlds and this is ours. Which world shall it be?
To hold these hours so close to our hearts, the seconds to midnight we fear.
The fading ice and fast rising seas shake the rocks of humanity.
These thousand worlds, we need only one for the sake of humanity.
This is the hour. This is our world.
Hold me close and keep me by your side.
In twilight sense the nearing tide.
Feel the ground is shifting now. Catch the air, the warming power.
Hold me close, the hour nears. Clouds are pouring sails of tears.
In the heavens find the truth of our sanity.
May the heavens spare our destiny,
though the weather may not spare our palaces.
Soar into the clouds with me. Go well. Soar high.
In the heavenly hour feel the clock of time is here.
Feel the heartbeat. Hear the beating of time.