Vespers (walking in beauty)

mixed chorus and wind ensemble (40')

Premiere: November 17, 2022
The University of Michigan Symphony Band and Chorus

Michael Haithcock, conductor
Eugene Rogers, Director of Choirs

PROGRAM NOTE:

Walking at dusk is something I have done since childhood. I am full of memories of walking – alone, and with others, on mountains, through cities, through woods, and along waterways. Walking tunes me to the pulses and sounds of my environment. Aligning myself with the rhythm of the natural world is something I crave, and in fact, I find it to be a form of healing. A form of prayer.

The texts I have chosen to set are interrelated by their imagery, their movement, and their sounds.

“Walk in Beauty” is a Navajo (Diné) traditional prayer. I have not “set” this prayer musically, rather it is a source of inspiration - a meditation I carry with me with gratitude.

For my father, with whom I loved to walk.

1. Invocation
2. Forget the Wars (Stesichoros – 6thc BC – trans. Brooks Haxton)
3. Les Distances (Philippe Jaccottet)
4. Brief Dream (Samuel Beckett)
5. Pied Beauty (Gerard Manly Hopkins)