At the beginning of the school year, Mr. Tyrel Ivie handed out new music to his Piute High School choir students. He announced that instead of working toward their typical Christmas concert, they would be doing something new this time.
“What language is this?” asked Amy Morgan. She, and the two dozen of Mr. Ivie’s students were surprised at what they saw on pages and pages of musical score.
“I was confused,” Kazlee King related. “I was expecting Christmas music. This was nothing like [what] I had heard before.” She added she was nervous she’d never learn the lyrics.
“I wanted a Christmas concert but oh well,” Blake Dalton told The Byway.
No, not this time. Mr. Ivie explained that this year, on December 16, they would perform Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary — a new world album composed by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins. Its nine songs, six of which Piute would perform, were released in 1995 and climbed the classical music charts through 1999. Previously, its title track had been used in a 1994 Delta Air Lines TV commercial.
Adiemus featured an unusual blend of orchestral classical music and world-music flavors baked into the vocals, percussion and its tribal-like rhythms.
But then there were the unusual lyrics. They looked like Latin, but weren’t.
“When I did the original Adiemus, it was a rush job,” Karl Jenkins told Classical FM last year. “They [Delta] wanted someone to sing, and so I thought — well, I haven’t got time to research text or anything. So I made it up, much like a scat singer sings in jazz. I kind of formulated text, invented phonetics, really.”
As it turned out, writing lyrics in a non-language had the effect of making the music universal. The piece launched Jenkins into international success and he noted that the song “had some resonance globally, even to places like Japan, where Delta didn’t fly!” The success also threw Jenkins into the Adiemus project, fleshing out a series of songs to follow, in five separate albums.
The listener should not be distracted by the phonetic words, however: in Adiemus, the vocal part is simply another instrumental voice in the orchestra. “Adiemus means many things,” Jenkins said, adding that listeners found there was something spiritual in the music. In Japan, it has come to be known as “healing music.”
Mr. Ivie first became acquainted with the music at Snow College under the tutelage of Dr. Steve Meredith. In the months of uncertainty following the tragic attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Dr. Meredith felt the people needed some healing music. Enter, Adiemus.
In 2002, Ivie explained, “we performed a similar show, complete with video presentations and dancing,” simultaneous with the musical performance. Piute’s performance in December would mirror that same format. “The real key is the synchronization of all of these elements,” Ivie told The Byway. “They are not random elements with vague start/stop times, but conscious decisions as part of the greater whole.”
Putting the project together was not just a function of intensive rehearsal, however. The orchestral tracks backing the choir had to be re-created from a single paper score, with parts hand-keyed via MIDI to combine with audio tracks. Choir parts had to be rearranged from Soprano-Soprano-Alto into parts fit for both women’s and men’s voices. Video imagery was compiled to sync with the music too.
Ivie also asked his colleagues Carol Springer and Carrie Davis, coaches of Piute’s dance company, to choreograph dance parts to the music. That included a dance solo by student Josie Davis. “The audience got the whole mix of media,” student Allison Garcia said of the concert.
With such a talented group this year, Mr. Ivie was confident they could perform the music. “I ultimately decided to do this show this year because I had the right group of students who could pull it off,” Ivie said. “They had strong voices, could pick up the music quickly, and did what they were asked — even if it was unfamiliar.”
With rehearsal, the students immersed themselves in the music. “Some of the songs were harder than others,” said soloist Alayna Severe. “It was hard to switch from what Mr. Ivie called your ‘bright voice’ to your normal chill voice.”
Pronouncing the words was a challenge in the beginning. “None of us knew what we were saying,” said Taesi Morgan. “This was challenging but after we learned the pronunciation, the songs became enjoyable to sing.”
“The songs might be hard or different but you learn to love the music,” Halley Kennedy said after the December 12 concert. She added that the songs “kinda have a special meaning.”
“The songs were very memorable,” Layla Taylor said. “I often found myself singing them while I got ready for school.”
Ultimately, Piute’s performance of Songs of Sanctuary was a success. Community members came to fill most of the seats in Piute High’s auditorium to see the 45-minute performance. Many were intrigued by the genre. After the final applause, at least a couple were found trying to imitate singing the foreign words.
“The music was nothing anyone had heard before,” Kazlee told us.
“I wouldn’t say that I love the songs, but I do like that we do a different kind of show,” said soloist Sage Nowers. “These songs are so different, and our community doesn’t expect them.”
“I loved all the songs,” Avery Buell said. “I loved how well they all mixed.”
Emma Davis, who was one of the soloists, pointed out that doing as well as they did had made them feel a sense of accomplishment. “Pretty much everyone loved it,” she said, referring to the choir members.
Indeed, such a performance is made successful by the choir working as a team, backed by a supportive community.
“I think having a collaborative show like this one is a fun and good idea,” said Sarah Morgan. “What I took out from working as a team was how important it is that everyone is putting in their own work and taking in and fixing what our choir director is teaching us.”
Blake concurred. “It takes a whole village to do stuff like this. It was awesome to see it work out.”
– by AJ Martel
Feature image caption: The Piute High School choir performs Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary by Karl Jenkins under the direction of Tyrel Ivie in Junction on December 16.
Read more about some of the Piute choir’s past performances in The Seventh Annual Piute Rock and Roll Concert by Ari Hurdsman.
AJ Martel – Escalante
AJ Martel is the youth coordinator at The Byway, but he is involved in most everything. He and his family live in Escalante, and they love it here! AJ has found Utah’s small towns quite inviting and under-defended, which is why he’s so involved with the paper. What AJ loves to do most, though, is serve his community. That is clear through everything he writes and does for Escalante, Utah.