Composed by multi-talented composer and performer Dawn Avery, Tulpe (water turtle in the Lenape language) features a sustained chant of "tulpe" against "tahkox" (water turtle/turtle) meant to be spoken by the instrumentalists and audience and reinforced by percussion parts played using different pitched rattles. Since we can't have audiences currently, all the vocal parts are performed by Elizabeth Brown - but if you'd like to be a part of the rhythm of this turtle inspired piece, by all means join in with your voice and any percussive instrument you have! Anna Shabalina is featured on cello, and Elizabeth Brown on oboe and ocarina.
For those of you who read music, the rhythm that repeats throughout is shown below! We would love to see videos of you playing/speaking or even singing along, so if you're inspired send them to us and we'll post them alone or add them to our version of Tulpe on YouTube!
During our preparation for Tulpe we stumbled on the amazing resource for pronunciation that is the Lenape Talking Dictionary. We highly recommend checking it out - not only do they have native speakers pronounce individual words for you, but there are also full sentences using many of the words so you can hear them in context.
