By Donald Null
The Worth County R-III Concert Choir will perform their rendition of Baba Yetu at the spring vocal concert to be held at 7 p.m., Tuesday evening, May 13, under the direction of Jim Spiers in the school gymnasium. The choir received a one rating, and a standing ovation, for their performance of the piece at district contest in Maryville. As always, I am amazed at what Jim and his kids are able to accomplish. That trip to Carnegie Hall was no fluke. Of course this year’s senor class is composed of some of the most musically talented performers I can remember. Since graduation is coming up this will likely be the last time you will see them perform together. I encourage you to attend the performance to see for yourselves what a wonderful vocal program we have in Worth county.
Now for a little background on the composer of Baba Yetu, the lead song for the upcoming performance. According to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, the song was composed by Christopher Tin. Tin was born and raised in California. He worked on his undergraduate education at Oxford and Stanford University. He graduated in 1998, receiving a BA with Honors in music composition and English literature. He continued to study at Stanford and received an MA in humanities in 1999. He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, becoming the first to be awarded one for film scoring, to study composition and conducting at the Royal College of Music in London, and he graduated with a MMus with Distinction. Tin’s biggest break came in 2005, when Soren Johnson, his roommate at Stanford and now working as a game designer at Firaxis Games, asked him to compose the theme song for Civilization 4. Tin responded with "Baba Yetu," a choral piece performed by Stanford Talisman, with lyrics similar to the Lord's Prayer in Swahili.
A rough translation of Baba Yetu in Swahili is provided on the Civilization IV Game website: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=123680
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