Mythic Vagabonds
for TTBB choir, unaccompanied
words by James Iwasuk
In many ways, Mythic Vagabonds is the antithesis of that favourite low-voice choir cliché, the sea shanty. Rather than romanticizing a life of adventure at sea, it explores the unglamourous aftermath of such a life for one particular person (the text being inspired by an adventurer-turned-gardener the poet once knew). While gently mournful and nostalgic on the surface, the music still has a sense of adventure in its searching, chromatic harmonies which are, at times, reminiscent of 1990s adventure film scores.