Colorado Chorale Marimba “Mass of Hope”

The Colorado Chorale, as part of their 39th season, is performing the Misa Tariro Marimba Mass of Hope by Kutandara leader Michael McIntosh. This work is inspired by Zimbabwean community worship ceremonies will be performed on March 22, 2009.

Full of energy and excitement it sounds pretty cool! The movements with marimbas specifically are 1, 2, 3, and 5. My favorite is movement 2 – Gloria. The deep resonant lowest octave is wonderfully recorded and blended with the choir! This also fits my personal definition of being audience accessible.

If you don’t live in the Boulder area, you can listen to their rehearsal MP3’s below.

Movement 1 -Ishe_Todzungaira_Kyrie, Movement 2 – Gloria, Movement 3 – Sanctus Benedictus, Movement 4 – Agnus Dei, Movement 5 – Tariro.

If anyone knows more about this piece please comment below!

One thought on “Colorado Chorale Marimba “Mass of Hope”

  1. We had our first rehearsal with the marimba group last night. Depending on the movement, there were 7-8 marimbaists playing, and they had a total of 9 marimbas. All the marimbas looked practically homemade. I also have to say that I’ve never seen a bass marimba before. It’s HUGE! The player had to be on a two foot platform in order to be at the right height to play it. I’ll see if I can get a few pictures of it next week.

    Also, I swear one of the players had to be about 10-12 years old. He was wailing away at the bass marimba, and then moved to one of the others for a later movement. A few of the other players were high school aged. All players had the entire piece memorized. Very impressive.

    Here is a video I have found about Kutandara, (the group playing with us.) Video You can get an idea of what their marimbas look like in the video too. With our group, they are using only the marimbas and not the other instruments.

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