Hiroshima: a Monday

When Dr. Kevin Coker approached me about collaborating on a choral song cycle, we talked through many different themes that we felt might tie a set of pieces together. In a previous work, Color Madrigals, I had used the color wheel and texts by John Keats as a jumping-off point so, for this new cycle, we entertained various ways to do the same. The idea we hit upon that we thought might yield something interesting was a song cycle based around something entirely quotidian (literally): the days of the week. We sometimes see the week as a thing to make it through, but momentous events like the first atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima and man’s first steps on the surface of the moon happened, boringly enough, on a Monday. But more personal stories—falling in love, having a child, losing a parent—can also happen to us no matter what day of the week it is. Thus, Songs for Seven Days was born.

To that end, I searched for texts that mentioned each day of the week and came up with some beautifully diverse offerings. For the second movement, American poet Robert W. Ressler offered up a contemplation about the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 (including the haunting phenomenon of the “Hiroshima shadows.”

Songs for Seven Days was commissioned by the Blue Valley Northwest High School Chamber Singers (Dr. Kevin Coker, conductor) for their performance at the 2014 Kansas Music Educators Convention.

-Joshua Shank