songs about loss
SATB a cappella | 6.5' | Graphite | Text: Barbara Crooker
"We weren't done talking yet. So I am trying to call you using the morning glories, whose blue mouths are open to the sky, whose throats are white stars..."
Without You depicts the welling-up of grief in repeated, lulling swells of emotion.
SSAATTBB Chorus & Soloists | 35' (8 movements) | Graphite
Text: Barbara Crooker, Amy Fleury, and Laura Foley
Following the death of a loved one, poet Barbara Crooker asks, "How can we go on, knowing the end of the story?" Secular requiem How to Go On answers this question in eight movements that explore our relationship to life and loss, ranging from doubt and introspection to acceptance of our own mortality.
SATB a cappella | 4' | Graphite | Text: Robert Louis Stevenson
Where Go the Boats sets a Robert Louis Stevenson text about a child’s boats sailing down a river. The child asks when they will return, then realizes they never will. "Boats of mine a-boating—Where will all come home? [...] Other little children Shall bring my boats ashore."
SATB a cappella with divisi | 4' | Graphite | Text by Laura Foley
Relinquishment (from How to Go On) sets poet Laura Foley's meditation on accepting loss. She writes, "I am looking at pale blue ponds of melted ice / on a frozen river / and in them perfect clouds passing. / Wind sends ripples along the water / and trees cut sharp lines into the sky... And I will be learning, again,
how to give it all up by simply turning."
