“When composing a choral piece, songs come more easily when I have an established relationship with the choir,” says a Cree-Dene composer Sherryl Sewepagaham. “My commissioned compositions are about relationships and the deeper the relationship, the more easily I am able to create.”
Calgary’s professional chamber choir Luminous Voices commissioned Sewepagaham to write a piece in 2022. The choir performed few of Sewepagaham’s pieces in concerts which gave her a chance to listen to the choir.
“I could hear each of the choral parts visualizing and hearing each of the Luminous Voices members and how they would sound singing each section from how I remember them. Once I sat down and decided the topic, theme, and melodic structure, the song came fast,” says Sewepagaham.
The topic? Chickadees.
“Chickadees is a familiar sound to my family when they were out on the land picking berries, camping, fishing, and hunting. My parents grew up in northern Alberta where there are different species of chickadees. I had recordings of chickadees in my phone for a few years and I thought, I'd love to create a song or choral piece integrating these chickadee bird calls.”
In the a cappella piece entitled Picikîsksîs (Chickadees) Chant, the audience will hear the chickadee courtship and dialogue as if the birds are singing and responding to each other in the northern Alberta trees. The Cree text is about a female chickadee and the male chickadee's response to her song.
“He loves her song and tells her so,” says Sewepagaham. “Miyâwsin (mee-yah-sin) is a Cree word that means ‘good or beautiful’ and the more the speaker emphasizes that word, the more pleasing it is. In this case, the bird's song. I hoped to create the chickadee courtship environment as if the audience is witnessing and listening to this beautiful courtship.”
Of Cree-Dene ancestry from the Little Red River Cree Nation in northern Alberta, Sewepagaham holds a Bachelor of Music Therapy (Capilano University) and a Bachelor of Education and a Master of Education (University of Alberta). She is a composer of traditional and contemporary First Nations drum songs. She is also a 22-year member of the 2005 Juno-nominated, Edmonton-based trio Asani.
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Picikîsksîs Chant will be premiered at Luminous Voices’ Through the Looking Glasses concert at 3 p.m. on Sunday, February 26, 2023, at the Bella Concert Hall, Taylor Centre for the Performing Arts, Mount Royal University.
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