🎵 "Baba Yetu" - "Angel City Chorale" 🎭 Baba Yetu is the Lord's Prayer set into Swahili and turned into music by Christopher Tin. The choice of language isn't decoration: Swahili became the common tongue missionaries used across East Africa, and the tradition of Christian hymns in that language goes back more than a century. Word for word, the text the choir sings is the same prayer millions repeat in dozens of languages. ✨ The piece was born in an unlikely place. Tin wrote the music for the opening of a strategy video game, and from there it traveled to the world. A university vocal group first performed it live; years later it was rerecorded for the album Calling All Dawns, with the South African group Soweto Gospel Choir, and that version won the Grammy for best instrumental arrangement accompanying vocalists, in 2011. It was the first time a composition written for a video game had won the award, and the feat even made it into Guinness World Records. An ancient prayer, an African language, and a game console: three things that don't usually share the same sentence. 🎤 The people singing here don't make a living from music. Angel City Chorale is a community choir from Los Angeles, founded in 1993 by Sue Fink, bringing together people from all walks of life around collective singing, run as a nonprofit organization. The solo belongs to Jimmer Bolden, who only started singing as an adult. That mix is what gives the recording its weight: this isn't a professional choir performing a score, it's an entire neighborhood singing a prayer. What song caught you completely by surprise, coming from the most unexpected place? 🎼 Christopher Tin · 🇺🇸 🎤 Angel City Chorale · mixed choir · directed by Sue Fink · 🇺🇸 🎤 Jimmer Bolden · tenor soloist · 🇺🇸 Follow for more stories the music holds. #BestOfOpera #ChoralMusic #ChristopherTin #BabaYetu - @bestofopera.en