I CARE IF YOU LISTEN: Track Premiere: Nathalie Joachim & Spektral Quartet Perform “Alléluia”
I CARE IF YOU LISTEN: Track Premiere: Nathalie Joachim & Spektral Quartet Perform “Alléluia”
BY AMANDA COOK
“Today’s track premiere features Spektral Quartet and flutist, composer, and vocalist Nathalie Joachim performing “Alléluia” from Suite pou Dantan off of Nathalie’s debut solo album Fanm d’Ayiti.
Translated as “Women of Haiti” in English, Fanm d’Ayiti not only explores Nathalie’s Haitian heritage, but also celebrates the songs and stories of Haitian artists.
Here’s what Nathalie had to say about “Alléluia:”
‘Alléluia” is from a suite that includes the voices of the girls choir from my family’s farming village of Dantan. I recorded them at a church service when I was in Haiti, which turned out to be a pivotal moment for me in my planning and research for this project. I’m not a church goer, but I definitely had a preconceived notion of a traditional Catholic service in my mind, and am familiar with the musical structure of a mass, of course. When I received the program of the service, it included all of the “normal” mass bits. But then the songs were sung, not in Latin, but in kreyòl (and French in this case), and not with an organist or pianist accompanying, but a drummer playing patterns deeply rooted in the Haitian vodou tradition which goes all the way back to our African roots. I absolutely loved this idea of these people (almost all women and children aside from the priest and drummer) practicing a religion that was forced upon them by colonialism, but so deeply unable to resist the influence of their ancestral religion within this new construct. I left that service understanding that my role in this project was to showcase that notion for myself and for Haiti: fighting to celebrate your roots in spite of what the world expects of you.’”