Flying Colours: Choral Octavo

Hatfield crafts a piece that sounds far more sophisticated than its six pages suggest. The writing sits well for voices while maintaining genuine compositional interest, making it an excellent choice for choirs wanting repertoire that impresses without requiring months of rehearsal.

Flying Colours radiates energy and optimism. The musical language feels current and expressive without alienating singers or audiences unfamiliar with avant-garde styles.

This octavo suits choirs at the intermediate to advanced level who are comfortable with contemporary harmonic language and want a concert piece that demonstrates their musicianship. It works equally well for festival performances or regular season programming.

• Establish the harmonic foundation early by having your lower voices lock in their parts before layering upper voices. This piece rewards clarity in each voice part.
• Pay attention to text alignment; let the natural speech rhythm of the text inform your phrase shaping rather than forcing it into rigid metric divisions.
• Balance brightness in the tone without pushing into shrillness. The contemporary idiom works best when voices sound warm and sustained rather than thin or forced.

Pair this with a contrasting work in a different style to showcase your ensemble's range. Its moderate length and concert appeal make it ideal for the middle of a program, where it can bridge between heavier choral works and lighter selections.

• Reading contemporary harmonic language
• Balancing multiple independent voice lines
• Sustaining tone quality in extended passages
• Text-music relationships in modern idiom