Children of a Dream
for women's choir (SSAA) and piano
words by Bliss Carman (1861-1929)
Winner of the Oriana Women's Choir (Toronto) composition prize, 2017.
Published in the Iris Levine choral series, Pavane Publishing. Buy or view the score here.
Difficulty: Medium-Advanced
This piece is based on the poem "Children of a dream" by Canadian poet Bliss Carman. It's a simple, even childlike poem about the contrasts that occur in nature -- but it uses these contrasts to emphasize a deeper meaning. What exactly that meaning is, is open to interpretation -- but for me, the poem is fundamentally optimistic and hopeful.
As a composer, I was drawn to this poem's simple structure. The lines in the poem are very short and direct, and I treated these lines as sort of musical building blocks -- rearranging their order and passing them between different voices to build long, colourful phrases.
Premiere: Oriana Women's Choir, Toronto, ON, May 2017
Published in the Iris Levine choral series, Pavane Publishing. Buy or view the score here.
Difficulty: Medium-Advanced
This piece is based on the poem "Children of a dream" by Canadian poet Bliss Carman. It's a simple, even childlike poem about the contrasts that occur in nature -- but it uses these contrasts to emphasize a deeper meaning. What exactly that meaning is, is open to interpretation -- but for me, the poem is fundamentally optimistic and hopeful.
As a composer, I was drawn to this poem's simple structure. The lines in the poem are very short and direct, and I treated these lines as sort of musical building blocks -- rearranging their order and passing them between different voices to build long, colourful phrases.
Premiere: Oriana Women's Choir, Toronto, ON, May 2017
Score and audio