Commissioned and premiered by Halifax Camerata Singers – Jeff Joudrey, Artistic Director – for their 35th Anniversary Season, 2021-22, and as part of my 2-year term as their Composer-in-Residence.
This is the final movement of Tapestry, a four-movement work all on texts by Canadian poet Jeni Couzyn. The work follows a trajectory of:
I. Seeking/searching
II. Struggle
III. Affirmation (Warrior)
IV. Arrival/Peace/Love
In this movement we arrive, finally, at acceptance and inner peace. Here is the moment of realizing that our inner light is always there – it’s not something we seek and find – it just is, and we realize it, and when we do, we are whole and at peace. It is about love, which, as Jeni says, ‘is the gravity that holds the substance of life together.’
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Watch the premiere performance by Halifax Camerata Singers - Jeff Joudrey, Artistic Director
Listen to a performance by Vancouver Chamber Choir - Kari Turunen, Artistic Director
Text
Around You I Turn – Jeni Couzyn
Because the world has you in it
the sun is safe in heaven
my heart will not revert to ice-age
psyche can perform her intricate
photosynthesis and the dark
will not engulf me
You’re on my side
as sunshine supports the cause of light
greet me with every breath
as dawn is constant
meet me with intelligent heart
as sunlight etches lines around
the ten thousand things
and so your love
assures me an uncontested right
an un-ambivalent place on earth
When I forget you
the fogs close in
but the axis you burned in me
remembers your alchemy
you’re my sun still my gravitational pull
you hold the particles in orbit
around you I turn.
