Christopher Tin’s Sogno di Volare with the Stay At Home Choir
The Stay At Home Choir’s latest collaborative project for choral singers around the world is Christopher Tin’s Sogno di Volare, as heard on his recent Decca recording To Shiver the Sky and on the Civilization VI video game.
Sogno di Volare by the Grammy Award-winning composer Christopher Tin is the work selected by the Stay At Home Choir for its new global choral project, bringing together choral singers at a time when live music-making is restricted due to the pandemic. Participants will rehearse Tin’s work and submit home video recordings, which will be edited into a final video recording to be made available on YouTube. Sogno di Volare opens Tin’s recent oratorio exploring man’s quest for flight, To Shiver the Sky, released on Decca Gold last year, and familiar as the theme music for the Civilization VI video game, first released by 2K Games in 2016.
The Sogno di Volare project opened on 15 January 2021 with access to full resources. It will run for approximately four weeks, plus extra time for recording and submitting of videos, with the finished video likely to be released in the spring.
> Sign up to join the Stay At Home Choir
To Shiver the Sky is “an oratorio about the history of flight, and mankind’s quest to conquer the heavens”, explains Tin. The work focuses on 11 historical figures - “our greatest astronomers, inventors, visionaries and pilots”, he explains - each of which serves as the basis for a movement, adding up to a kaleidoscopic epic that crosses centuries, continents, and perspectives.
Sogno di Volare (The Dream of Flight) is the opening movement of To Shiver the Sky, setting Leonardo da Vinci’s writings on flight, with gradually building waves of choral and orchestral sound achieving an exhilarating lift-off. In the Stay At Home Choir project the choral voices will be combined with the orchestral tracks performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the composer. Christopher Tin was interviewed by the Stay at Home Choir’s Tori Longdon to introduce the work and will participate in the project through to the recording by voices around the world.
“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”
Leonardo da Vinci
A video of Sogno di Volare was created last year to explore the theme of humanity’s quest to achieve flight, from depictions of running animals in cave paintings through to the conquest of space itself. The composer views the video as “an ode to humanity: a tribute to those who push us forward as people”.
> View the Sogno di Volare video
Christopher Tin, along with the Stay At Home Choir, has announced the #SognoChallenge: a fun, social media challenge where musicians are invited to reharmonise his anthem to Civilization VI, Sogno di Volare. Entrants are asked simply to take Christopher's theme and change the harmonies, then post their new rendition to social media with the hashtag #SognoChallenge. A video with full instructions and submissions so far are viewable on Christopher Tin’s website
> Visit the Christopher Tin website
About the Stay At Home Choir
The Stay At Home Choir, founded in 2020, is a global community of music lovers and artists which is accessible to all. It has become known for its vibrant webinar rehearsals, inviting more than 7500 singers from 75 countries through its Zoom ‘virtual doors’, allowing members to meet and rehearse with featured artists such as The Swingles, VOCES8, The Sixteen and the King’s Singers and composers including Sir James MacMillan and Sir Karl Jenkins. The Stay At Home Choir is more than just a 'virtual choir'. Members get unprecedented access to work directly with some of the world's most famous artists and composers, enjoying a rich schedule of interactive events and access to a global community of music-lovers.
About Christopher Tin
Christopher Tin is a two-time Grammy-winning composer. His music has been performed and premiered in many of the world's most prestigious venues - Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center, the Hollywood Bowl - and by ensembles diverse as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Metropole Orchestra, and US Navy Band. His song Baba Yetu, originally written for the video game Civilization IV, holds the distinction of being the first piece of music written for a video game ever to win a Grammy Award. In 2020 Christopher signed with Universal Decca, releasing his oratorio about the history of flight as told by 11 of our greatest astronomers, investors, visionaries and pilots: To Shiver the Sky. The album debuted at #1 in Billboard's CLASSICAL CROSSOVER charts. His works are published by Concord Music Publishing/Boosey & Hawkes and he works out of his own custom-built studio in Santa Monica, Los Angeles.
> Christopher Tin on the Boosey & Hawkes website
> View Christopher Tin’s music at The Shop at Boosey.com
> Buy the Decca CD of To Shiver the Sky from Amazon