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Choral Review
Choral Review

of a man in blue.” The voice parts are arranged in such a clock ticking. At the end of this section, the music
a way that the meaning of the word “blues” can be becomes very intense with low brass playing accented
interpreted in two ways: first, in reference to the mu- eighth-note arpeggios that add to the tension in the
sical style of this section, or second, the way Rankine text. The words “I can’t breathe” are sung twenty-sev-
intended in reference to the police force. Either way, en times in this section (Figure 2 on the next page).
Dilworth is incorporating a significant style that is vital The stressful cry for help in the music continues to
to the history of African American music that serves build for several more measures with tense voice parts
as an acknowledgement of both the musical and social of “the sound of someone being choked to death,”
experience of people of color in the United States. which add to the overall volume and intensity of the
The next subsection of “The Marginalization” is piece and create a sense of unity between the choir and
more impactful when looking at the score than it might wind ensemble. These gasping voice parts bring the
be to the listener. Measures 114–62 rotate between 8/8, meaning of the text and music to a much deeper level
4/4, and 6/8 to reflect the amount of time (8 minutes and call attention to how uncomfortable and disturbing
and 46 seconds) that Floyd spent under the knee of the these moments are.
police officer. This metric pattern continues for sever-
al measures while the text “eight-minutes and forty-six Section 3: The Memorial
seconds” is layered on top (Figure 1). “The Memorial” is set to a spiritual style call-and-
As the choir sings “in extremis” in measure 147, the response. In this section, Dilworth offers a personal
meter pattern changes from the original (8/8, 4/4, 6/8) response to Rankine’s invitation to “say their names.”
to a pattern that reflects the actual time that Floyd was This is derived from #sayhername, a hashtag that orig-
knelt on: 9:29 (9/8, 2/4, 9/8). Finally, Dilworth adds a inated following the death of Briana Taylor in 2020. In
woodblock line of even quarter notes, which represents addition to this text, Dilworth provides sixteen names

CHORAL JOURNAL October 2025 Volume 66 Number 3 71