• Premiere: February, 2012 / Memorial Church at Harvard / Carson Cooman

• Instrumentation: SATB, or TTBB and optional keyboard 

• Duration: 2:30'

• Text: Unknown origin; Tune: attributed to "More" in the Baptist Harmony (p. 468) 

• Suitable for choirs of all ability levels.

• Suitable for worship or concert performance.

 

Program Note

 

This piece was commissioned by Carson Cooman through the NEW CHORAL MUSIC! initiative, a Kickstarter project that funded my 2011 CD, Motets. It was completed on November 27, 2011 in Sandwich, New Hampshire, and revised in Karlsruhe, Germany in 2015.  This piece was a finalist for the 2015 Ortus International New Music Competition. 

 

The tune's simple pentatonic nature is set upon an organic, chromatic harmonic palate. Homophonic writing is reminiscent of the tune's original shape-note origins, and the hummed choruses that book-end the piece contribute to its contemplative nature.