On May 17, Voices of Ascension & the musician collective ShoutHouse will premiere Orbits, a new musical work for MC, vocal octet, and chamber ensemble by composer Will Healy and spoken-word artist spiritchild. Voices of The New prides itself on highlighting contemporary voices making strides in the world of chamber vocal music, and Will and spirit reflect that ethos to a tee. We spoke with them about their influences, how their collaboration came to be, and what we can expect from this exciting new piece of music.

What inspired Orbits? Where did the idea come from?

Will: The original inspiration for it came about five years ago. I was sitting in my apartment, writing music, and reflecting on the world around me. And I had a desk that looked right out on the sidewalk, and there’s glass in between me and the people on the other side. I thought how strange it was to always be reflecting on my own thoughts with all these other people around me. So I started to think about the distance between myself and other people, the distance between myself and society, and the distance between myself and the universe, or between spiritual elements. I started to think, “how would that distance be represented in music?"

How did this collaboration come about?

spiritchild: Like most collaborations, it starts off with a phone call. Will told me about this new project and I was excited about it. The possibility of having a choir was a huge deal. Immediately, I started thinking about what Will was speaking about in terms of orbits: the self, society, technology. How can we make that a journey lyrically? So I thought of the genesis of self, the Big Bang theory, how we came to be. Lyrically, I was inspired by Sun Ra, Andre 3000, OutKast. I was thinking for the choir a kind of eeriness, like the digital voice, or cadence, of Erykah Badu or Funkadelic.

Will: spiritchild sent me this great voice memo recording of him breathing outside and you can hear this wave of cicadas in the background. So I decided to start the piece with that voice memo recording. Hearing that pulled the piece into a totally different direction.

How did Voices of Ascension fit into project?

Will: We saw Voices had a post on American Composers Forum about Voices of The New, but I’ve had this concept for a long time and thought this would be the perfect place for this piece. I talked to Dennis and Liz in a meeting before the pandemic and there was a lot of overlap between what I liked and what Voices liked.

spiritchild: I write a lot for other people, but I haven’t written for a choir before so that was really fun! I would try to sing what I would hear in my head like in a Gregorian chant style. When I write my verses, I have a lot of ideas in my head that I would love to perform, but I can’t do it, so it was amazing to write for people who can hit those notes.

What do you hope audiences gain from Orbits?

spiritchild: There are moments in the piece where the tension grows and there’s this reflection on society. Being a revolutionary artist, I always hope that people get to expand their horizons, to think about humanity and liberation, and their connection to things that oppress us, whether it be technology, governments, or ourselves. I hope people leave feeling more human. I believe that having all these various ideas in one space does expand the mind tremendously.

Join us on May 17 at 7:30 PM at Roulette to Will Healy & spiritchild’s Orbits, performed by Voices of Ascension & ShoutHouse. Purchase your ticket below!