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These popular music chord progressions, coupled with the speech driven rhythms and repetition in the piano, allow listeners to feel an instant connection to the music and focus on the message of the text. When I wrote Sisi Ni Moja I specifically chose chord progressions that would be familiar to the ear of both the audience and the singers performing. This “celebratory chant” mirrors the piano and djembe’s heavy rhythmic influence, energizing and driving the song forward. It is given a more instrumental treatment in the chorus, acting as a joyful, declamatory backdrop to the song’s message of unity. “Heja” (pronounced “hey-yah”) is a non-word with no literal meaning, and does not represent any specific culture. I asked her to assist me with a Swahili phrase that I could combine with a new original text, which would translate specifically to “We are One.” Though not a common Swahili phrase, we came up with “Sisi ni moja,” pronounced “Moh-Jah” with a hard “J”. I was teaching high school at the time, and a student in one of my choirs was from Kenya. Since the piece was intended to represent all people and all cultures, I sought to write a text that would reflect just that. I wanted to create an uplifting, hopeful song that had a modern, popular-style vibe and dealt with the choir’s theme of unity and one-ness. The energetic djembe sets the tone, the piano adds its own rhythmic design, and the singers deliver the message, at times sounding as. The title translates We are one, the theme being that all human beings have much in common. The SA voicing was written two years later (2017) for the Lawrence Children’s Choir in Kansas, Carolyn Welch, Director, and a TBB voicing was requested by the publisher later that same year. Sisi ni moja (We Are One) sheet music, level: Medium Jacob Narverud, SAB, Ever clever, composer Narverud came up with a highly rhythmic celebratory composition. This piece was written specifically for their world-music concert theme, “We are One.” It was requested to be similar in style to my arrangement of the Kenyan song “Jambo,” and was commissioned by the director for SA(T)B choir, piano, and djembe.
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