Teacher Pages

ART/MUSIC COMPONENT FOR TEACHERS

RED ROSE CANTATA, Alma Thomas, 1973

Objectives

Students will be able to identify rhythmic patterns within art, poems, listening units and songs. Students will be able to recognize that by performing a choral work and reciting a poem has dynamics, form and colors as in a work of art.

Students will be able to recognize style and form of the different periods.

Art

Students will be given the musical background for cantata and will also be able to click on a link to a brief biography of Alma Thomas.

Studio Activity

Students will find a piece of music which they feel contains the related musical element they have identified as being present in Red Rose Cantata (rhythm and/or repetition).

Students will make a painting which expresses the music in terms of color and form.

Students should make decisions as to whether they wish to isolate certain fragments of the music, or whether their painting will be a reflection of the entire piece.

Consideration should be given as to what role empty space should play in the composition.

Assessment

Students talk about their work to their peers, giving a clear rationale for choosing the elements they did and how they link with the music.

Students should describe the mood of their chosen painting, compare it with that of the music and explain, using appropriate art vocabulary, how they expressed this mood.

Enrichment

Students write a poem which reflects both the art and the music already identified.

Combine the three components to make a banner, or post to make a web page.

Students browse the gallery's website to find another painting which they could use in a similar manner.

Music
Listening, Choral Work and Poetry

Listening: Cantata BWV 80 "Ein Feste Burg ist Unser Gott" by Johann Sebastian Bach

Rhythm:
Choral speaking
Poems: "Women" by Alice walker(1944) from "Words with Wings" selected by Belinda Rochelle

"For My People" by Margaret Walker (1915)
from "Shimmy Shimmy Shimmy Like My Sister Kate" by Nikki Giovanni

Songs:
Performance "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring" by J.S.Bach (1685-1750) From Cantata 147 Arranged by Kirby Shaw for 2-part voices, Hal Leonard Publishers

Procedure:
For each art work that is being studied, the students will be involved with choral speaking (poetry), listening, singing and performing.

Ask students to think about colors, dynamics and tempo as they listen to the music and when they begin to memorize the poems.

Engage in questions concerning the development and form of the cantata.

Engage in questions of the feelings that the students perceive of the life and times that the poems portray.

Introduce the choral work from the Baroque Period of J.S. Bach "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring," and from the twentieth century of Natalie Sleeth, "Cantate Domino." Engage the students in:

Chanting the rhythmic phrases
Sight reading and memorizing each vocal line
Work on dynamics, breathing and diction.
Perform both poems and choral works at the end of the semester in a school concert.

Assessment:
Have students assess how thoughts and images are expressed in music and art, within a variety of historical, stylistic and cultural contexts.

Encourage students to write in a journal a brief description of their choral performance, and to comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the performance.

Ask students to work together to develop descriptions of the similarities between each poem and music selection, and the corresponding piece of art work "Red Rose Cantata."