Taloowa' Chipota (Children's Songs)

About this piece

Taloowa' Chipota (Children's Songs) is a two-movement work for 3-part mixed choir, piano and cello by Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate, commissioned by the American Composers Forum for ChoralQuest, its series of new music for middle-school choirs. Tate wrote it in residence with the middle-school choir at Dickson Middle School in Dickson, Oklahoma, which premiered it under director Lisa Riggle. In the composer's note, Tate writes that the songs 'are reminiscent of traditional stomp dancing and are based on old Chickasaw melodies.' The first movement, 'Hashiat Kochcha (Sunrise)', depicts the first light of morning; the second, 'Loksi' Hakshop (Turtle Shells)', is built from abstracted textures that imitate the shell-shaking of stomp dances, sung to vocables, with the choir also playing egg shakers. Apart from the piano, the cello is the only instrument: it enters in natural harmonics under the choir's opening vocables and later has a solo marked 'sempre molto tenuto'. There are recordings by the Minnesota Boychoir (posted by the American Composers Forum) and by the University of Central Oklahoma Cantilena Women's Chorus with cellist Tess Remy-Schumacher (on Tate's channel). The octavo, which includes the cello part, is published by ACF and distributed by Hal Leonard (HL00119300).

Technical overview

Two movements: I. Hashiat Kochcha (Sunrise), slow, about 6 minutes; II. Loksi' Hakshop (Turtle Shells), 'Driving & joyful' at crotchet = 138, about 3 minutes. The cello part opens with natural harmonics on all four strings and then plays long slurred and tied bass lines. The second movement has accented open-string fifths, repeated triplet quavers, a tenuto solo melody that climbs to F-sharp on the A string, stopped double stops and a pizzicato passage.

Technical focus

• Harmonics
• Double Stops
• Pizzicato
• Legato
• Shifting
• Dynamics
• Hairpin Dynamics
• Rhythm
• Ensemble Skills