Color — Caste — Denomination —

SSSSAAAA a cappella

Death is the great equalizer; arbitrary classifications like race and religion are mere human artifacts. This piece for advanced women’s chorus alternates aleatoric sections with more traditional techniques to create a powerful statement on equality.

Featured in the Project:Encore catalog

Duration: 5:00 Difficulty: 5 (advanced)

Download perusal score

Purchase scores

Text: Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

Color — Caste — Denomination —
These — are Time’s Affair —
Death’s diviner Classifying
Does not know they are —
As in sleep — All Hue forgotten —
Tenets — put behind —
Death’s large — Democratic fingers
Rub away the Brand —
If Circassian — He is careless —
If He put away
Chrysalis of Blonde — or Umber —
Equal Butterfly —
They emerge from His Obscuring —
What Death — knows so well —
Our minuter intuitions —
Deem unplausible —

“Color—Caste—Denomination—” published by Harvard University Press
THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON: VARIORUM EDITION, edited by Ralph W.Franklin, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright 1951, 1955 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright renewed 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright 1914, 1918, 1919,1924, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1935, 1937, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright 1952, 1957, 1958, 1963, 1965 by Mary L. Hampso

Planning a performance? Let me know!