Stephen Hatfield: Just Can't Stand It SS

A kind of brisk a cappella blues with lots of call-and-response for treble voices in two parts (SS). Medium technical difficulty, but the piece has been embraced by advanced choirs because it's the kind of show-stopper that has brought festival audiences to its feet. A mixture of cynical humour, compassion and anxiety attack, the text lists the miseries of a young student who just hates the ordeal of going to school and trying to get along with anybody at all. (They say that kids are nice and kids are good. So why all the creeps in my neighbourhood?) At the same time these miseries are described with such panache that the piece is as much a hoot of triumph as a wail of frustration. The piece can be performed without the body percussion notated in the score. For Contra Costa Children's Chorus, CA.