Ubuntu

The opening of Stanley Moss’s poem unfurls the spirit captured in Zwilich’s musical setting for Bass Voice, Djembe (African drum), and Piano: “I salute a word, I stand up and give it my chair, because this one Zulu word, ubuntu, holds what English takes seven to say: ‘the essential dignity of every human being.’ I give my hand to ubuntu —” Zwilich’s six-minute work proudly declaims Moss’s message, using a djembe to add African-inspired color and punctuation to the musical whole.