Listen to the Heron's Words

Listen to the Heron's Words

Author: Gloria Goodwin Raheja

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1994-04-29

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0520083717

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In many South Asian oral traditions, herons are viewed as duplicitous and conniving. These traditions tend also to view women as fragmented identities, dangerously split between virtue and virtuosity, between loyalties to their own families and those of their husbands. In women's songs, however, symbolic herons speak, telling of alternative moral perspectives shaped by women. The heron's words—and women's expressive genres more generally—criticize pervasive North Indian ideologies of gender and kinship that place women in subordinate positions. By inviting readers to "listen to the heron's words," the authors convey this shift in moral perspective and suggest that these spoken truths are compelling and consequential for the women in North India. The songs and narratives bear witness to a provocative cultural dissonance embedded in women's speech. This book reveals the power of these critical commentaries and the fluid and permeable boundaries between spoken words and the lives of ordinary village women.


Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of a Man

Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of a Man

Author: Marcus Baram

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Published: 2014-11-11

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 1250012791

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Best known for his 1970 polemic "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," Gil Scott-Heron was a musical icon who defied characterization. He tantalized audiences with his charismatic stage presence, and his biting, observant lyrics in such singles as "The Bottle" and "Johannesburg" provide a time capsule for a decade marked by turbulence, uncertainty, and racism. While he was exalted by his devoted fans as the "black Bob Dylan" (a term he hated) and widely sampled by the likes of Kanye West, Prince, Common, and Elvis Costello, he never really achieved mainstream success. Yet he maintained a cult following throughout his life, even as he grappled with the personal demons that fueled so many of his lyrics. Scott-Heron performed and occasionally recorded well into his later years, until eventually succumbing to his life-long struggle with addiction. He passed away in 2011, the end to what had become a hermit-like existence. In this biography, Marcus Baram--an acquaintance of Gil Scott-Heron's--will trace the volatile journey of a troubled musical genius. Baram will chart Scott-Heron's musical odyssey, from Chicago to Tennessee to New York: a drug addict's twisted path to redemption and enduring fame. In Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of a Man, Marcus Baram puts the complicated icon into full focus.


The Caribbean Story Finder

The Caribbean Story Finder

Author: Sharon Barcan Elswit

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2017-11-02

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 1476663041

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The Caribbean islands have a vibrant oral folklore. In Jamaica, the clever spider Anansi, who outsmarts stronger animals, is a symbol of triumph by the weak over the powerful. The fables of the foolish Juan Bobo, who tries to bring milk home in a burlap bag, illustrate facets of traditional Puerto Rican life. Conflict over status, identity and power is a recurring theme--in a story from Trinidad, a young bull, raised by his mother in secret, challenges his tyrannical father who has killed all the other males in the herd. One in a series of folklore reference guides by the author, this volume shares summaries of 438 tales--some in danger of disappearing--retold in English and Creole from West African, European, and slave indigenous cultures in 24 countries and territories. Tales are grouped in themed sections with a detailed subject index and extensive links to online sources.


Sensibility and English Song

Sensibility and English Song

Author: Stephen Banfield

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1985

Total Pages: 644

ISBN-13: 9780521379441

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The history of English song from the late nineteenth century to the Second World War.


The Herons of Europe

The Herons of Europe

Author: Claire Voisin

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2010-10-30

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 1408135825

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Although the majority of the world's Herons live in the tropics and subtropics, Europe is home to nine species, some large, some small, some colonial, some solitary breeders. Highly specialized birds, they exhibit many interesting differences in their behaviour and ecology and are a favourite group for many ornithologists. Voisin begins her book with a general description of the family before going on to treat each species in more detail. The species accounts summarize such topics as field characters, distribution, population size, breeding and feeding ecology and behaviour. Numerous figures and tables are accompanied by fine drawings of behaviour by P. L. Suiro and colour and black and white pictures of each species by Gunnar Brusewitz.


The Lost Words

The Lost Words

Author:

Publisher: Edition Peters

Published: 2022-05

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13:

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The Lost Words by composer James Burton takes its inspiration and text from the award-winning 'cultural phenomenon' and book of the same name by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris: a book that was, in turn, a creative response to the removal of everyday nature words like acorn, newt and otter from a new edition of a widely used children's dictionary. Both the book and Burton's 32-minute work, which is written in 12 short movements for upper-voice choir in up to 3 voice parts (with either orchestral or piano accompaniment), celebrates each lost word with a beautiful poem or 'spell', magically brought to life in Burton's music. At its heart, the work delivers a powerful message about the need to close the gap between childhood and the natural world. Burton's piece was co-commissioned by the Hallé Concerts Society for the Hallé Children's Choir and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The piano accompaniment version was premiered at the Tanglewood Festival in 2019 by the Boston Symphony Children's Choir, of which Burton is founder and director. The Hallé Children's Choir will premiere the orchestral version of the full work in Manchester, UK, post-pandemic. Vocal Score Co-commission by Boston Symphony and Hallé Concerts Society for their respective Children's Choirs. Two versions - with orchestral or with piano accompaniment. The vocal score is the same for both versions. James Burton is a composer but also a conductor. He is conductor of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and choral director of the Boston Symphony. The book The Lost Words, exquisitely designed, has won multiple awards and is an international best-seller. The vocal score includes Jackie Morris's beautiful imagery in its cover design.


The Old Songs are Always New

The Old Songs are Always New

Author: Genevieve Campbell

Publisher: Sydney University Press

Published: 2023-07-01

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 1743328761

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It’s really great. It’s like they’re all here. I hear all of these voices and I sing with them, you know? — Yikliya Eustace Tipiloura, senior songman and Elder Perhaps the most defining feature of Tiwi song is the importance placed on the creative innovation of the individual singer/composer. Tiwi songs are fundamentally new, unique and occasion specific, and yet sit within a continuum of an oral artistic tradition. Performed in ceremony, at public events, for art and for fun, songs form the core of the Tiwi knowledge system and historical archive. Held by song custodians and taught through sung and danced ritual, generations of embodied practice are still being created and accumulated as people continue to sing. In 2009 Genevieve Campbell and eleven Tiwi colleagues travelled to Canberra to reclaim over 1300 recordings of Tiwi songs, made between 1912 and 1981, that are held in the archives at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). The Old Songs are Always New explores the return home of these recordings to the Tiwi Islands and describes the musical and vocal characteristics, performance context and cultural function of the twelve Tiwi song types, giving an overview of the linguistic and poetic devices used by Tiwi composers. For the past 16 years Campbell has been working closely with Tiwi song custodians, studying contemporary Tiwi song culture in the context of the maintenance of traditions and the development of new music forms. Their musical collaboration has resulted in public performances, community projects and recordings featuring current senior singers and the voices of the repatriated recordings. For this publication, Elders have enabled the transcription of many song texts and melodies for the first time, shedding light on how generations of Tiwi singers have connected the past with the present in a continuum of knowledge transmission and arts practice.