Warrior (III from Tapestry)

Publisher: LAH Publications

Catalogue Number: LAH 77-3

Year: 2021

For: SSAATTBB

Duration: 6:30

Commissioned and premiered by Halifax Camerata Singers – Jeff Joudrey, Artistic Director – for their 35th anniversary season 2021-2022 and as part of my 2-year term as their Composer-in-Residence.

This movement of ‘Tapestry’ is a passionate, visceral outpouring of self-affirmation. The text comes from a five-poem set Corona Sequence by my favourite poet, Canadian Jeni Couzyn. I first read this poem in the summer of 2020, and was deeply struck by the power and energy of her words, and knew right away that I wanted to set it to music. Existential and ontological anxieties throughout our society have increased exponentially in the past couple of years, and so many people are questioning themselves in new and incredibly challenging ways. For me, this poem/piece cries out in the face of uncertainty and self-doubt, standing firm in the belief that in all this turmoil and amidst all our shortcomings and struggles, we must remember and believe in the inherent good in us. We are all connected as one, and every person, in their glorious imperfection, has value, is important, is deserving of love. When we know this of ourselves, we can know it of others. This is the work of the warrior.

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Watch the premiere performance by Halifax Camerata - Jeff Joudrey, Artistic Director

Listen to a performance by Vancouver Chamber Choir - Kari Turunen, Artistic Director

from A Corona Sequence by Jeni Couzyn

I stand by my life.
I stand in darkness, like on a rock
in the middle of a churning river.
I stand by the choices I made, my actions
wholehearted, generous, and brave
I stand by my life and I sing, my silence
a drop in the heaving sea
of the singers with slit tongue.
I sing though no echo comes back.
I sing as a warrior into the silence.

A serene fish barely moving
opens its mouth to receive
my syllables as they swim
but I will not stop.

I’m witness to the earth and cosmos
this intricate heart of mine
I bring to union with the One,
this wild rider reigned to truth –
that uncontrollable
black bull of sorrow.
If I could hang out my life in sunlight
it would spark, a tapestry of brilliants
in a fine pattern, a web of meaning
each stitch with its meaning like a shadow.

I stand by my life – this vibrating nuclear sun
this wholeness that has been my life.
I pulse with fullness
a bee with wings beating
two hundred times every second
I hum with fullness
orchestra in my cells, choir of my mind
singing lighthouse spinning light waves
in a polar sky.

Gazing outward at you from my centre
I see galaxies. The light waves travel
outward through time. The sound waves travel
looping and winding harmonies in
indelible singing.

This life I inhabit
will hold its hieroglyph through eternity
the sword dance of a warrior
brave, present.
The patterns of the dance remain in air
as sounds do, as light does
an energetic transmission for light years.
No-one on earth needs to read this
or agree or endorse it.
I acknowledge my beautiful life.