Description
This exciting work begins a cappella before a grand entrance in the virtuosic piano part. Lyrical lines lead into a rhythmic middle section that culminates with a thrilling climax.
Performed by the 2018-19 Minnesota All State TB Choir, Nicole Lamartine, conductor
Text
The aiming:
you aim at the center of the eye
you gather all landscape around that single point:
if a bird-ribbon flies across the edge
if a cloud teases the sun you gather all to the one point
there is only one
The letting go:
you are let go
you are no longer grasped empty air surrounds you
you no longer lean against the bow your hock is free
you are free
you are in danger
remember the center
all of you remembers the center
The flight:
you are moving along an invisible track (you make it yourself)
straight as your spine is straight
– “Arrow” reprinted from Laughing Gas: Poems New and Selected by Ruth Whitman, Copyright © 1990 Wayne State University Press, with the permission of Wayne State University Press.
Composer Notes
Send your singers on a music theory scavenger hunt! This work is based on a repeating motive that you can find in the vocal parts as well as the piano: scale degrees (in this order) 1-2-3-2-1. Can you see how this motive is also related to the opening chord? How about m. 74? How about the final chord?
– Jocelyn Hagen