Program Notes

"...For it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken." - Audre Lorde, The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action, 1977

"Don't you see how everything that happens is again and again a beginning [...] since, in itself, starting is always so beautiful?" - Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, 1903

This piece is about the relief and joy of speaking up, speaking our truth, whether personal or societal. Acknowledging my own identity, just as the humid Kansas summer started turning blessedly cool, was my new beginning. The song captures the tumultuous joy and confusion of that experience. After months without writing, this song was my first step to "get up and dust off" after a deep pandemic funk. Reading and meditating on these texts by Audre Lorde and Rilke helped me find my ground again.

I am so grateful to Annick Odom, bassist, clarinetist and folk/Appalachian vocalist, for her inspiration to create this. The piece allows the vocalist to improvise and at times open their throat to the heavens for some Sacred Harp style singing.