Beginnings

Mary Drew (one of those helping GCA with publicity), asked me for some information about how "The Armed Man" work was "discovered" and chosen as a GCA project. I sent her the following paragraph.

In March 2008, I was judging a choral festival with Dr. Kevin Hibbard of the University of West Georgia. GCA was in its first season and on the ride to the site I was picking his brain about possible community chorus repertoire. Kevin directs a community group at Emory called Collegium Vocale (http://www.cvchorus.org/newsite/Home.html). He said that, hands down, the most popular work he had done was Jenkins “The Armed Man.” He said it was a favorite of the chorus and the audience alike. Upon returning home, I was reading a music journal (probably a week later) when I stumbled on a piece about “The Armed Man.” That following Sunday, our accompanist Seth Davis came in and said that he had just purchased a new CD called “The Armed Man” and he thought the music was fantastic and might be something GCA would want to program. So, in the months that followed I obtained a recording and did some searching on YouTube. I ordered a DVD of the composer directing a performance. The videos all included a film background showing various war images and combat footage, etc. As I listened to the music, it struck me that the music really lent itself to a visual element or movement of some kind. The “politicalness” of the film turned me off slightly and sent red flags about possible alienation of parts of our audience. For example, the film projects images of Ronald Reagan and George W Bush during the singing of “Bloody Men.” That’s when I thought it would be really neat to collaborate with the Griffin Ballet Theatre. I sent Mitch Flanders a score and a recording and suggested we collaborate. He immediately responded in favor and we started making plans.

The rest is history!