Music of the Americas

Like Alice in Wonderland, we step through the looking-glass into another world, a world of make-believe where we play musical tourist to the sights and sounds of the Americas: we sample New World optimism and experience the legacy of the African slave trade filtered into folk and spiritual song, ragtime, the jazz that colours the works of Copland and Bernstein, and the myriad polyrhythmic dances of Latin America.

Schafer's Miniwanka occupies a special place in our repertoire. In 1997, it was our first taste of a vocal music that tries to capture nature in sound, with a storm and waterfalls painted by strange vocal sounds coming from the performers, who read a blueprint of squiggly lines and waves and splotches. What an adventure.

Some of the lighter works are also old favourites: Hogan's The Battle of Jericho and Erb's Shenandoah are familiar to SYC concert-goers. Others are hot off the press: Kelly Tang has written a 'contemporary motet' for us based on an old Michael Jackson ballad, and Bob Chilcott has dedicated his arrangement of Didn't it rain to us.

This year, we are happy to have Maria Guinand join us in a repertoire that is but a drop in the vast ocean of música de latinamérica. The Latin American harmonies and rhythms challenge ouor minds, ears and bodies, and create a path of understanding to others' worlds as we explore the work of major composers and the major popular musical forms - Argentina's unofficial 'national anthem' (tango), the Brazilian ballad (modinha), and the backbone of salsa (Cuban son).

Why do we sing the music of others, seemingly irrelevant to our place and time, our context - what has this music to do with Singapore and Singaporeans? Perhaps because the music brings us outside of ourselves and off this tiny island, an occasional temporary cure for self-centredness and claustrophobia. Perhaps, when we get to live others' lives through their song, we find ourselves, as voyageurs sailing through the Shenandoah valley, we experience a longing for home and acknowledge our own search for a sense of belonging in our frenzied cosmopolitan lives.

The music of others gives us access to the full range of human experience, helping define us - who we are, could be, used to be and are not. The similarities still surprise us. As we stand on stage tonight, once again, we invite you to discover yourself in our music. Your music.