Disenfranchised
Minnesota composer Elizabeth Alexander composed “Disenfranchised,” an original choral work that takes a direct look at the insidious, never-ending cycle of voter suppression. With wit, directness, and a touch of satire, this high-energy song calls out disenfranchisement for what it truly is: a power game with winners and losers, ever-changing rules, and underlying it all, the intent to exclude.
This moderately-difficult 3-4 minute piece is available in three different voicings (SATB, SSA, and TBB) designed to facilitate programming with combined, flexibly-voiced choirs of all ages.
Timeline
Fall 2023—Performed locally by commissioning choirs in spring 2024
July 10-14, 2024—Performed at GALA Festival 2024.
Why voting rights?
Coretta Scott King said, “Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.”
“We are living in the midst of a monumental retrenchment of human rights. This may seem new but it is not. We are stronger together. Let us now hold hands across what divides us. Let’s rise up, sing out and march on.”
—Dr. Catherine Roma
“We will not be passive in the face of injustice and allow every generation to fight the same battles. We will drive our communities to the polls and vote like the lives of our children depend on it because it does.”
―Janet Autherine, The Heart and Soul of Black Women: Poems of Love, Struggle and Resilience
“…any voter denied a say in democracy has been harmed, and a remedy is in order regardless of the effect on an electoral outcome.”
―Stacey Abrams, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America
About Elizabeth Alexander
Elizabeth Alexander (b. 1962) grew up in the Carolinas and Appalachian Ohio. Her love of music, language and challenging questions is reflected in her catalog of over 150 compositions in a wide variety of classical and vernacular styles. Her commissions have included music for orchestras, chamber ensembles, solo voices, and especially her choral pieces, which have been performed by thousands of choruses worldwide.
Her theatrically-inclined works include the one-woman concert-length Nature Creature as well as dozens of theater songs pretending to be art songs and choral pieces. Her current project, Split Hickory, is set in present-day Appalachia, and draws from Americana and folk music styles from the past hundred years. Selections from Split Hickory were recently workshopped at Nautilus Music-Theater’s Rough Cuts (Minneapolis). A more indepth reading and workshop in scheduled for Fall 2022 at Shawnee State University (Portsmouth, Ohio).
Elizabeth’s text settings of both original lyrics and the words of others prompted Choral Director Magazine to write that “her mastery of prosody and declamation results in a marriage between music and text that is dynamic and indelible.” Other reviewers have described her music as “brilliantly innovative” (New York Concert Review), “truly inspired” (Boston Intelligencer) and “stunning…exquisite…sculpting light into sound” (Kansas City Metropolis).
She studied composition with Jack Gallagher at The College of Wooster, and with Steven Stucky, Yehudi Wyner and Karel Husa at Cornell University, from which she received her doctorate in Music Composition. She has received grants, awards and fellowships from the McKnight Foundation, Jerome Foundation, New Music USA, Minnesota State Arts Board, New York Council on the Arts, Wisconsin Arts Board, National Orchestral Association, International League of Women Composers and American Composers Forum.
Elizabeth lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where she practices yoga, makes pretty good biscuits, and looks for all kinds of excuses to visit her two grown sons.
More at www.elizabethalexander.com/biography.
