Oregon native Kevin Walczyk (b. 1964) is an award winning composer of works in many different media, especially wind band. Among his many other honors, he was inducted into the American Bandmasters Association in 2017. After undergraduate work at Pacific Lutheran University, he completed his MM and DMA in composition at the University of North Texas. In addition to composition study with famous figures such as Karel Husa, Cindy McTee, and David Del Tredici, he was also the arranger for the renowned One O’Clock Lab Band at North Texas. He currently serves as Professor of Music at Western Oregon University.
Songs of Paradise was written in 2011 on a commission from Paul Popiel and the Kansas Music Educators Association Northeast District Honor Band. It won the Big East Conference Band Directors Association Composition Competition the following year. Walczyk provides the following program note in the score:
Songs of Paradise is a setting of hymns by African-American composer Charles Albert Tindley (1851-1933). These five hymns – from Tindley’s complete compilation of 46 hymns, were published in a collection entitled New Songs of Paradise (1941).
Tindley was born in Berlin, Maryland and raised by his father after his mother died when Albert was only two years old. Having to be “hired out” in order to help earn a living, young Tindley taught himself to read and write. During his formative years Tindley moved to Philadelphia where he would spend the rest of his life forging a most influential career as a pastor, orator, social activist and composer. Given the sobriquet “father of African American Hymnody”, Tindley’s humble beginnings and lack of formal training, led to a musical style of hymnody distinguished from those of his Anglo-American counterparts by addressing the worldly sorrows, blessings and joys that pertained specifically to African-Americans, and incorporated elements of improvisation and early vestiges of gospel music, including summary refrains following each stanza.
The five concert band settings of Songs of Paradise introduce new harmonies, rhythms, counterpoint and structural designs to the hymns. The melodies and contextual implications of the lyrics, however, remain intact and in the spirit in which they were intended.
Walczyk runs a tight ship on his website, which includes an information page and a purchase page for the piece. The info page also includes a score preview and a very fine recording. Here is a live performance:
The first movement is based on a hymn called “Come Saints and Sinners.” The link displays lyrics and also has a link to a MIDI rendition of the tune.
Movement two uses “The Home of the Soul“, also known as “I Hear of a City.”
The third movement is built from “It May Be a Brother“.
Movement four uses “I Am a Poor Pilgrim of Sorrow” as its inspiration. Walczyk’s treatment is rather straight laced compared to this gospel version by Albertina Walker:
The final movement marches to a conclusion using “I Have Found at Last the Savior.“