We are singing a new piece in chorus, and I’m rapidly falling in love with it. It will be acapella when performed, it has challenging melody lines and harmonies, and it’s really quite haunting, but in a good way.
And the text?
OMG, the text! I did some research and as it turns out it’s a poem from the poet laureate of Minnesota- Joyce Sutphen. I snapped this pic of the text from the front of our music:
Normally I’m not a big fan of prose poetry; it always feels a bit cheap and effortless to me. Unless there is interesting imagery or obvious, deliberate word selection.
For some reason this poem resonates with me. I love the word on gravel roads part. And the “somewhere In a field” section of the music is simply gorgeous.
Overal the musical setting just amplifies the text into something beautiful and fascinating.
And fragile.
Anyway, I’m really looking forward to singing this one in our upcoming concert– and I think the chamber singers will take it to GALA.
It’s beautiful 🙂