‘I am because you are’: A critical reflection on composing choral music to promote social inclusion for asylum seekers in Ireland

Abstract

This article presents a critical reflection from a composer embedded in a national community-music project centred around asylum seekers. This reflection-on-action is contextualized within wider scholarly discourse in community music, including the notion of ‘hospitality’ and the generic features of participatory performance. An account is given of the research and analysis that informed the composer’s process for the choral work, the Song Seeking Songbook (2019). This collection of six pieces is tailored to the specific context of the project, which aimed to provide a stimulating basis for musical engagement in order to promote social inclusion. The effective pre-existing repertoire is explored to identify the key musical features that helped articulate the core principles of composition. A selection of the newly composed songs is discussed to demonstrate how these principles were deployed in the final composition.