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About the Composer

Katerina Gimon

Composer, improviser, and vocalist Katerina Gimon’s uniquely dynamic, poignant, and eclectic compositional style has earned her a reputation as a distinct voice in contemporary Canadian composition and beyond. Her music has been described as “sheer radiance” (Campbell River Mirror), “imbued…with human emotion” (San Diego Story), and capable of taking listeners on a “fascinating journey of...

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Katerina Gimon

This Is That (medium voice)

Name: This Is That (medium voice)
SKU: KG-ThisIsThat
Availability: InStock

Katerina Gimon

A plaintive and compassionate ‘what if’ to what might have been without the life scars that capture us all.

Art Songs

piano

medium voice

Difficulty: 4

Duration: 3-5 min.

KG-ThisIsThat

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Alternative Versions

This Is That

View High Voice Version

medium voice and piano

Set to a text by Canadian poet Coreen Philley, This Is That is a song of grief, reckoning, and reflection on sadness of the past and the many paths our lives may have taken.

“This Is That” was written and premiered on June 29, 2018 in Vancouver, Canada as part of the 7th iteration of Art Song Lab, a program that brings together writers, composers, and performers from around the world to create new art song. Soon afterwards, Erato Ensemble commissioned and premiered an arrangement of “This Is That” for voice and chamber ensemble accompaniment which premiered on February 9, 2019 in Vancouver, Canada.

NOTE: Available in high and medium voicings with piano or ensemble accompaniment.

Vocal range:
High, D4 – G5
Medium, B3 – E5

Composer’s Notes

Poet’s note:

“This Is That” a plaintive and compassionate ‘what if’ to what might have been without the life scars that capture us all. I always imagine myself and others to be riding parallel lines of existences — those which we live and those which we once hoped we would live or perhaps at least be in. We are taught that all the experiences of our lives add up to the complex, complicated, interesting empathetic individuals — basically that there are no wasted experiences. On our good days I think we can all believe that to be true. However, I know it’s important to acknowledge with poignancy and grace what could have been and who we could have been — to honour that part of ourselves that longs for peace, for ourselves and others. “This is That” is a song of grief and of a reckoning with the sadness of the past. Albeit, with the potential for some hope — if you read between the lines.

— Coreen Philley

Text

I want to be poetic/ words tripping off my tongue

Beauty in my parentheses

Silent periods of grace

But instead I am this

I want to be forgiving, lightness flowing across my face

Like a light breeze on a May weekend

Heart open, head up

But instead I am this

This is not that

It is something other

Something coated in a greasy film

My legs quivering from shoes too tight

And tired I stand

I can’t wash off my rough and ready hands

I want to be clean

I want to be a newly minted something

But still I am this

Always I am this

And then it’s just this

This is not that

It cannot be named accurately

Imprecisely creeping along the edge of consciousness.

And I wonder

Ever

Always

How much of this is because of what you did to me

In ways that were unpoetic, unforgiven, unenlightened, and unclean

This is that

Worn upon my sleeve.

— Coreen Philley

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