Analysis Of The All-East Men's Choir Concert

The final event I attended was the All-East Men’s Choir concert, held Saturday, November 19th, 2016 in the Ronald and Lynda Nutt theatre in the Clayton Center at Maryville College. This was an all-male choir that participated in the All-East choral competition in order to be scored on how well they performed their pieces. The choral music professor Stan McGill conducted this performance, with Webb’s School of Knoxville’s Jean Helbig accompanying. The choir performed six songs during their concert, but in this essay I will be discussing three: “Freedom Come”, “Tell My Father”, and “Pirate Song”. The concert began with the men singing the song “Freedom Come”, written by Ben Allaway. Having this song as an opening set the tone of the entire performance, letting the audience know that the performance would consist of religious themes. The repeated chant of the word “Hallelujah” largely confirmed these themes. This song majorly consists of many different performers singing solo lines, with the entirety of the concert

Jones. The song begins at a low amplitude, with the pitch of the men staying at the same low place. The beginning tempo is also quite slow. This lack of tempo change provides a bit of hilarity to the audience, as the performers sing humorous lyrics with a monotone voice throughout the piece. One such example of this is having the performers sing the words “Arg” over and over, in the way that a traditional pirate is supposed to. The melody of the song is quick and easy for the average listener to hum along to, like he or she would with a pop song on the radio. As the song progresses and the lyrics go into more details, the amplitude rises to give emphasis to what the men are saying. This then dies off near the end of the song. This leaves the listener with a contemplative but humorous ending, one that would not be the same had any of the musical qualities of the song