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About the Composer

Joan Szymko

Joan Szymko is widely regarded as an outstanding composer of choral music in America today. With a catalog of over 100 choral works in print, her music is sung regularly at choral festivals and competitions across North America and abroad and for nearly two decades has been heard on stage or in sessions at every...

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Joan Szymko Music

The Gift to Sing

Name: The Gift to Sing
SKU: JS-083
Availability: InStock

Joan Szymko

This beautifully crafted anthem pays homage to the healing power of song.

Choral

mixed choir, tb choir, treble choir

piano

fall, secular, spring, summer, winter

Difficulty: 2

Duration: 3-5 min.

JS-083

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2-part, any voice combination and piano

Commissioned for the 2017 Seattle Sings Choral Festival, this beautifully crafted anthem pays homage to the healing power of song. Useful for a variety of occasions; great closer!

Text

The Gift To Sing

Sometimes the mist overhangs my path,
And blackening clouds about me cling;
But, oh, I have a magic way
To turn the gloom to cheerful day—
I softly sing.
And if the way grows darker still,
Shadowed by Sorrow’s somber wing,
With glad defiance in my throat,
I pierce the darkness with a note,
And sing, and sing.
I brood not over the broken past,
Nor dread whatever time may bring;
No nights are dark, no days are long,
While in my heart there swells a song,
And I can sing.

– James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)

$2.25 per licensed PDF