Sprinkle Coal Dust on my Grave
An Oratorio
Sprinkle Coal Dust on my Grave is an oratorio for choir and orchestra roughly 45 minutes in length. It is scored for mixed choir and SATB vocal soloists, narrator, string orchestra, piano, percussion, and a small ensemble of fiddle, banjo, and string bass. The work recounts the history of the Mine Wars, an important but often overlooked period of U.S. labor history, and includes newly written narration as well as texts from historical sources including speeches, witness testimony, and poetry. The title is taken from a song of the same name by Orville Jenks.
Act 1:
Prologue
Blackdamp
My Children are not of Age
A Devil of a Place
Act 2:
Rednecks
Holly Grove
Union Song
Act 3:
Solidarity Forever
Blair Mountain
Epilogue: There’ll be a Tomorrow
Don’t forget me, little darlin’, when they lay me down to rest.
Tell my brothers all these loving words I say:
“Let the flowers be forgotten, sprinkle coal dust on my grave
In remembrance of the U.M.W.A.”
-Orville Jenks, 1933
Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living!
-Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, 1925
This composition was written as the composition component of my DMA thesis at the University of British Columbia. The thesis is publicly available from the UBC thesis repository here.
for information on obtaining sheet music, please contact me at WalkerWilliamsMusic@gmail.com
An Oratorio
Sprinkle Coal Dust on my Grave is an oratorio for choir and orchestra roughly 45 minutes in length. It is scored for mixed choir and SATB vocal soloists, narrator, string orchestra, piano, percussion, and a small ensemble of fiddle, banjo, and string bass. The work recounts the history of the Mine Wars, an important but often overlooked period of U.S. labor history, and includes newly written narration as well as texts from historical sources including speeches, witness testimony, and poetry. The title is taken from a song of the same name by Orville Jenks.
Act 1:
Prologue
Blackdamp
My Children are not of Age
A Devil of a Place
Act 2:
Rednecks
Holly Grove
Union Song
Act 3:
Solidarity Forever
Blair Mountain
Epilogue: There’ll be a Tomorrow
Don’t forget me, little darlin’, when they lay me down to rest.
Tell my brothers all these loving words I say:
“Let the flowers be forgotten, sprinkle coal dust on my grave
In remembrance of the U.M.W.A.”
-Orville Jenks, 1933
Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living!
-Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, 1925
This composition was written as the composition component of my DMA thesis at the University of British Columbia. The thesis is publicly available from the UBC thesis repository here.
for information on obtaining sheet music, please contact me at WalkerWilliamsMusic@gmail.com