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Finally, the World Gets the Gritty Choral Work it Deserves
"A gritty resolution" for SATB choir debuts this weekend
Victor Fiorillo of Philadelphia Magazine
June 6, 2024
Finally, the World Is Getting the Gritty Choral Work It Deserves
Who had "Local Musician Will Compose a Choral Work About Gritty" on their Philadelphia 2024 bingo card? I certainly didn't. And yet, that's just what has happened.
This Saturday at Settlement Music School in Germantown, Philadelphia composer Melissa Dunphy, who's previously had works performed at Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall and Disney Hall in Los Angeles, will unveil "A Gritty Resolution" to the world. The five-minute-long tribute to Gritty is a four-part choral work for soprano, alto, tenor and bass.
PhilHarmonia, a local choir, commissioned the Northern Liberties resident to write a choral work with a deep connection to Philadelphia. She had free rein. But it didn't take her long to land on Gritty as the subject matter.
She originally solicited her Facebook friends for poems about Gritty. But then she came upon the 2018 resolution about Gritty that then-City Councilmember Helen Gym introduced. Dunphy had previous experience turning government documents into texts for choirs to sing - the most notable one was her "Gonzales Cantata," which came out of the transcripts of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings of former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales - and she realized Gym's resolution was the perfect fodder for her Gritty tribute.
"The result is a huge, bombastic hymn where every verse and chorus gets bigger and bigger, unashamedly schmaltzy and triumphant," Dunphy says of her composition.
I asked Dunphy if she's a Flyers fan, or just Gritty's Number One Fan. She laughed.
"What's horrifying, and I'm a bit hesitant to admit this, is that I've ever been to a hockey game in my life," says Dunphy. "We really don't have hockey in Australia, where I'm originally from. Ice skating isn't a 'thing' there. But Gritty is the best thing ever. I would die for Gritty."