Suite for Chorus

Each piece can stand alone, but when the entire suite is performed it reveals many musical motifs developed in each of the four pieces.

1. Kum Ba Ya (Spiritual)
2. Too Young to Marry (Folk-song madrigal)
3. They That Mourn (Requiem)
4. Papageno and the Prince (Fairy Tale)

Press

“While introducing Kirke Mechem’s Suite for Chorus which was given its New York premiere by the New Amsterdam Singers, the conductor Clara Longstreth pointed out that in the realm of vocal music most composers select the text, then write the score. For Mr. Mechem, on the other hand, words were secondary in this work, which treats the choir like a symphonic or chamber ensemble and uses consonants and vowels the way string players incorporate pizzicato and varied bowing strokes. What resulted was a colorful, complex work. Words and sounds overlapped in a texturally rich tapestry in the cycle’s four songs.
— New York Times