I haven't had abundant encounters with performing music from other cultures, but what I have had the opportunity to perform has been very memorable to me. I think I remember them all so well is because my director emphasized the overwhelming importance of performing other cultures' music. Oddly enough, all the songs that I have sung that are from outside the Western culture have all been choral pieces, I have never sung one as a solo. I feel like that gives it a richer experience, to be sharing an unfamiliar musical style, text, etc.

One of the choral pieces that I did when I was at district chorus in high school was called "Veneki, Birth Switches." It's a Russian favorite, but it literally translates into nothing. There are some references to brooms; it is sung in Russia purely out of tradition, but is not in the least bit comprehensible. I'm sure the funniest part for our director was listening to us all trying to pronounce the language, luckily it was very repetative. In my junior year of high school, I had the most wonderful experience of attending the All-Virginia All State Choir. My director was Dr. Janet Galvan, who teaches at Ithaca College in New York. What was so fabulous about this woman was that she believed it was not only recommended, but necessary, to diversify our musical repertoire. In my opinion, the most interesting song we sang was called "Hoj, Hura Hoj." It is translated "O, Mountain O" and it is a Movarian Czech song by Otmar Macha. There was three soloists choosen, and Dr. Galvan specified that they needed to be as close to straight tone as possible (with little or no vibrato). I'm assuming that that is the Czech style of singing. The summer before my senior year, I went to a conference for the American Choral Director's Association. Obviously, I'm not a chorus director, but my old voice teacher was a member, so she sent me to sing in the choir that was going to perform at the end of the conference. One of the songs chosen was called "The Children's Revolution." It was the big piece at the end of the performance, it included the Children's Choir, the students, and the teachers. Needless to say, the stage was very crowded. Although parts of the songs are in English, there were sections of it that were sung in Swahili, which is an African language. "The Children's Revolution" contains the Swahili language to show what the chidren sing in that section of Africa. That was when I discovered that Swahili is one of the most beautiful languages to sing. There are so many distinct "clicking noises" used in African languages that give it this unique coloring and meaning.