Valerie Coleman featured in NPR’s WHYY for “This is Not a Small Voice” World Premiere

Valerie Coleman giving instructions during the rehearsal of “This Is Not A Small Voice” (Photo credit: Emma Lee)

Sonia Sanchez poem ‘This is Not A Small Voice’ is now a piece of orchestral music.
Peter Crimmins
WHYY
February 4, 2022

A poem about the innocence of Black children, and the need to protect it, is the inspiration for a new piece of music, which got its premiere with the Philadelphia Orchestra this week.

The poem by Sonia Sanchez, “This is Not a Small Voice,” was first published in 1995, and is now the first part of a yet-to-be-completed song cycle by composer Valerie Coleman, commissioned by the orchestra.

This is not a small voice

you hear this is a large

voice coming out of these cities.

The Philadelphia-based poet and icon of the Black Arts Movement — and recently the winner of the $250,000 Gish Prize — Sanchez is well known for her writing and her performance style, how she delivers her work with rhythmic repetition and expressive vocal techniques. Sanchez can change the color of her voice, moving from a pitiful squeak to a powerful, melodic shriek.

Coleman said Sanchez’s words naturally translated to notes.

“Her poems are music. They have a rhythm. They have a flow,” said Coleman. “I just had to follow the blueprint of what she put on the table, and then just add my own little touches here and there. I was her sous chef.”

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