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Joan Szymko

Joan Szymko is widely regarded as an outstanding composer of choral music in America today. With a catalog of over 100 choral works in print, her music is sung regularly at choral festivals and competitions across North America and abroad and for nearly two decades has been heard on stage or in sessions at every...

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Joan Szymko Music

Organize, Agitate, Educate

Name: Organize, Agitate, Educate
SKU: JS-102
Availability: InStock

Joan Szymko

The words of Susan B. Anthony compel us to roll up our sleeves and make history.

Choral

treble choir

piano

fall, secular, spring, summer

Difficulty: 3

Duration: 3-5 min.

JS-102

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Lifting As We Climb

View Full Work

SSAA, piano

“Organize, Agitate, Educate!” is the stand alone 2nd movement of Lifting As We Climb, a choral narrative 35 minutes in length scored for women’s choir, narrators (6) piano, drum kit and alto sax. Suffragists come to life and previously hidden voices of African American women fighting for the vote are heard. Lifting As We Climb looks back in time, but also explores the present day and anticipates a future that will require a diligent, informed public ready to fight for equality, democracy and the right to vote. “Organize, agitate, educate must be our war cry,” are the words of Susan B. Anthony, a prominent figure in the first wave of suffragist action. The choral setting utilizes spoken narrative to create a compelling story arc.

Text

I ask no favors, I ask no favors for my sex; all I ask of my
brethren is that they will take their feet from off our necks!
Organize, agitate, educate!

We’ll have our rights; see if we don’t;
and you can’t stop us from them; see if you can;
You may hiss as much as you like, but it’s coming’

Organize, agitate, educate!
We’ll win the vote; see if we don’t.
It is the emblem of equality,
the guarantee of liberty.
Organize, agitate, educate!
Roll up your sleeves, set your mind to making history,
and wage such a fight for liberty that
the whole world will respect our sex.

To the wrongs that need resistance,
To the right that needs assistance,
To the future in the distance‚ give yourselves!

Organize, agitate, educate! Roll up your sleeves,
set your mind to making history,
and wage such a fight for equality
and the guarantee of liberty.
We’ll have our rights! Organize!

-Joan Szymko
adapted from quotes by Sarah Grimke, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Carrie Catt, Anna Julia Cooper, Lucy Stone

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