By BERNARD HURLEY
Added: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 06:35:17 UTC

I sing in many choirs and a constant complaint from members is that there is so little secular music to sing. I have the impression that most choral singers are atheists, but it may be merely because I don't sing in church choirs.

I am going to do something to try to redress the balance. I intend to write a piece lasting about 20 minutes for the following line up: 4 solo singers, amateur choir, organ and trumpet. The theme of the piece has to be "From one generation to the next". I intend to finish with a setting of the end of Darwin's Origin of Species. I would like to start with something about the "big bang". It would be nice to include something about generations of stars or, at the micro level, maybe elementary particles. There must be many scientific topics I could use.

It would be nice to know what people think of this idea. Have I just gone barking mad or is it something worth doing?

It would also be nice to know if anyone could suggest (or maybe contribute) any texts I could set. There is only one caveat. That is that copyright fees etc would have to be waived for amateur performances. (I will be waiving performance rights fees for amateur performances)

TAGGED: ATHEISM, DARWIN, SECULARISM