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Timothy C. Takach
Timothy C. Takach Publications
Digging Up a Rose (from We Are Phoenix) (Practice Tracks)
We can bloom, even when we’re cast aside and forgotten.
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Digging Up a Rose
Download audio practice tracks for Timothy C. Takach’s “Digging Up a Rose (from We Are Phoenix)” for SATB or 3-part mixed and piano.
Includes full access for 1-50 singers. These tracks are sold in batches of 50, so please round up the number of singers in your group to the nearest multiple of 50. Example: 42 singers = Qty. of 50 in your cart.
About the tracks:
- These rehearsal tracks are designed for the benefit of distant / isolated singing in your personal spaces, and to encourage independent learning. These audio tracks work best with earphones / headphones on.
- The tracks are professionally mixed so singers are ensured high quality audio recordings to support their learning!
Important licensing & purchasing terms: The purchase of this resource allows your choral organization to distribute it to your singers and staff for their own learning at any time, but not to be duplicated, edited in any way, and/or shared beyond the organization.
This piece showcases Takach’s talent for setting text in a perfectly supportive musical way. The melodies always ask for thoughtful phrasing and natural text stress, the harmonic shifts are wonderful surprises and emotionally fulfilling, and the narrative is immediately accessible and universal. The metaphor of a rose bush, discarded and forgotten, blooming on its own anyway, so closely resembles moments in our lives when we have been cast aside. This movement from Takach’s larger work We Are Phoenix stands alone so well and has been a favorite among performers.
Composer’s Notes
I love this poem because it’s true. I also love it because it’s so relatable. Human beings can be forgotten, and considered worthless. We have all, at one point or another, been the ones at fault in this, and we have also been the ones tossed away and forgotten. Human beings are not disposable or specifically replaceable, and the resilience that this poem teaches us is that even when left behind, humans can find the strength and the determination to endure, to grow.
Musically, there’s a bittersweet sense in the harmonies here, a contrast between a minor longing and a beautiful arrival. These two senses move back ond forth, building toward a grand opening up on the word “bloomed.” Human beings are marvelous creatures. We fall down and get back up again. We face opposition, and our minds immediately start searching for a way around. Or over. Or through. We reshape our surroundings, redefine ourselves, and forge a path forward. And yet, it’s easy to forget this capability. There are moments when everything is too much, when we can’t see around or over or through the obstacle.
But in those darkest, lowest times, we can look to nature herself as a mirror of our own existence—her resilience, her constant cycle of destruction and renewal. In doing so, we may find a small point of light, a glimmer of hope, and a way to rise.
– Timothy C. Takach, 2025
This text is drawn from my personal experience. Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, I dug up a rose in my garden, dumped it sideways in a pot, and forgot about it…essentially leaving it for dead. But months later, the rose was still very much alive and producing the most stunningly beautiful pink flowers. This idea of not only surviving but actually thriving in the most inhospitable conditions is one that I think we can all take to heart. Each of us has value and worth, even when others do not see it.
– Caitlin Vincent, 2025
Text
I dug up a rose in my garden.
To make room for something new.
Less formal.
Less fussy.
More me.
I dug up a rose.
Dropped it sideways in a broken pot.
And forgot it was there.
Then summer came.
And the old discarded rose
Shocked me with a shock of pink.
With a cloud of old-fashioned blooms.
It refused to let me choose.
Refused to let me deny its value.
But bloomed.
To spite me.
Bloomed.
In spite of me.
Bloomed.
To remind me.
To know my worth.
And to know it most of all.
When sideways in a broken pot.
– Caitlin Vincent
$1.00 per set
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