About the Piece

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Commissioned and premiered by the MSU Denver Chorale (Dr. Michael J. Kornelsen and MB Krueger) for their CMEA 2018 performance. Premiered on Oct. 14th, 2017 at the Kenneth King Center in Denver, CO.

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Awards

- Society of Composers International (SCI) 2020 Conference: Featured Work

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The Story

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We have all had those insomnia filled nights. It's often in the dark when we cannot see our surroundings that we reflect on the inward: our worries, our blessings, the surreal, the philosophical, or the mysterious. Rachel Morris, the poet, and I have been friends since childhood. When I first started my education as a composer, I remember that one evening I was having one such moment of sleeplessness. I was feverishly lurking a popular social media platform and noticed that Rachel was online. Deciding to be somewhat productive, I sent her a message with the first line of the poem for this piece and asked her to provide a second one. She did, eventually, to which I responded with the next line and asked for another. The process went like this until we had a full poem.

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After a few edits for coherency, I told her that one day I would set this poem to a choral piece. And there it sat for almost 10 years in a folder on my desktop, Until MB and Mike asked me to write this piece for MSU Denver. Upon renewed inspection of the poem, I felt it needed something else before I could set it. Rachel's mother is a fluent Spanish speaker, and so I decided to ask my musical colleague and friend, Dr. Matthew Bentley (PhD in Spanish), to translate the poem into Spanish. He so very graciously agreed, and the text was then finalized.

 

Filled with unique harmonic shifts that flow like a half-sleep trance, aleatoric passages full of anxious restlessness, and grace note "Spanish flair," this piece has been well received by many choirs and audiences alike. Accepted to be featured at the Society of Composers International 2020 conference, you'll love all that this piece can offer!

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Listen:

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See the Score:

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Text:

 

Spanish

Poem by Rachel Morris,

translated into Spanish by Matthew Bentley

 

Me siento junto al fuego,

Estoy inquieto.

Los sueños cobran vida:

Sueños lunares de los océanos del pasado.

Me siento incómodo.

Oigo el agua. ¿Es sueño o recuerdo?

¿Las olas que rompen en las playas de mi alma?

Sueño, no piques más.

Ahora, en olas, abrázame

Con el sonido del silencio.

Por fin, descansa.

 

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