I was recently asked to respond to the following questions for an article in the American Choral Directors Association of Minnesota’s magazine, Star of the North.
In your role as a composer and/or conductor, how do you ensure your music is accessible to the performers and audience? If possible, can you give an example of a piece of music or program idea that highlights inclusion?
Accessibility can mean a variety of things for an audience and performers. It can mean that a piece is accessible with regards to text and music for diverse performing groups from children’s choirs to professional ensembles and can be sung in a variety of spaces from churches to community choirs. My piece, “Sweet Radiant Mystery,” is accessible in this way.
But accessibility can also help us understand the topic of inclusion on a deeper level. My work “Boxes” (SSAA and piano), which I’m excited to announce will be premiered by the Atlanta Women’s Chorus next spring, uses the accessible musical language of Broadway styles to nudge us into a broader understanding of inclusivity. Because the musical style is familiar to our ears, we can listen more closely to the text and the message embedded within.
We’ve all felt what its like to not fit in to societal boxes. The push to conform can be powerful. Think middle school lunch, cocktail parties or first time conferences! How many of us were teased for being too feminine or too masculine, or for just not fitting in? What if you feel like you don’t fit in and you don’t know why? Or you shop for and try on clothes in the section of the store that feels most like you, and you get chastised?
“What if being me means living my dream to be who I’m meant to be? True to myself, true to the world, true to me.”
I’m a cisgendered woman, I use she/her/hers pronouns and, even though I prefer jeans over dresses and find make-up to be a mystery, I’ve always felt comfortable as a woman. I knew when I began writing the text for “Boxes” that it was not my story alone. If “Boxes” was to be accessible and inclusive, I needed to reach out to my friends who experienced the world differently than me. Friends who see themselves as gender-queer, non-binary or transgender. Because I reached out, I was gifted with the opportunity to open my eyes and my heart. Friends gave feedback on my text and invited me to interview them. Their comments are reflected in the lyrics and their stories accompany the score.
“Boxes” was commissioned by ADCA-MN for the 2020 9th-10th grade SSAA Honor Choir, but was taken off the program following the completion of the work. (The text and score were approved and I was compensated for the piece.) ACDA-MN felt that the limited time an honor choir has to rehearse did not allow for the discussion that the work deserved. While I was sad about the loss of the premiere, I respect that ACDA-MN had a right to make that decision.
What happened after I received this news was revealing to me. I felt ashamed. I felt like I had done something wrong. I had “colored outside of the lines.” Societal pressure is powerful and that old feeling from middle school came back to me. It was an “Aha” moment and a small glimpse into the daily lives of people who are gender-queer. It was incredibly difficult for me to share the news with my friends I had interviewed. I felt like it was one more place where they weren’t fully accepted and I dreaded being the messenger. Of course, they tried to console me. And it was hard. I had lost a premiere. But it wasn’t the same. Their voices were silenced and their stories were rejected. Who they were truly are as people was deemed too complicated.
I was grateful to ACDA-MN for having an open and honest conversation with me. I told them that I dreaded delivering the message to my gender-queer friends. I said that I believed the real loss was to the gender-queer community, some of whom may have been members of the honor choir. If nothing else, it is highly probable that at least one person in the choir would have a friend who identified as gender-queer.
Just days after I delivered the final score with the interviews to ACDA-MN, I received news that a very dear friend had lost her son who was transitioning. I wonder what would change if, like one of my friends who I interviewed said, we were to see folks who might be different from us “as normal, as people.”
ACDA-MN has sent me the following that I could use in promotion of “Boxes”
“The American Choral Directors Association of Minnesota (ACDA-MN) commends to its constituency, the study of and subsequent performance of its 2019 commissioned work “Boxes” by Minnesota composer Catherine Dalton.
Written for accompanied high school treble voices, this compelling piece depicts the revealing and challenging stories and portrayals of people not fitting into the “boxes” imposed upon them by traditional societal norms.
As a work possessing significant artistic merit that brings these compelling issues to light, it is our collective hope that choral communities will help give a positive voice toward enhanced and enlightened understanding for all those impacted and affected that live and reside “outside the box”.
It is a profoundly appropriate and important piece written for this and all time.”
I am beyond thrilled that the Atlanta Women’s Chorus is premiering “Boxes” spring of 2022, but their director, Melissa Arasi, does not want to be alone in bringing this song to the world. If you’re interested in being part of the premiere of “Boxes,” let me know. If you want to be a part of the premiere, but you’re an SATB or TTBB choir, let’s talk. “In this new world we are all free to be who we’re meant to be, whoever that my be.”