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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

At the Shore of the World

Name: At the Shore of the World
SKU: JS-070
Availability: InStock

Joan Szymko

A love song between the people and the waters.

Choral

mixed choir

piano

fall, secular, spring, summer

Difficulty: 4

Duration: 3-5 min.

JS-070

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SATB, piano, agogo, congas (2)

Two short condomblé song texts (one in the original Yoruba language, the other translated into Portuguese) honoring Yemanjá are combined with a lovely poem by Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore that, in this work, serves as the voice of Yemanjá. And so this is a love song of sorts between the world (people) and the waters (Yemanjá). The “seed” of this work is a chant I composed while I was a Fellow at Instituto Sacatar, an artist residency in Bahia, Brazil (2009).

Text

A wà ààbò a yó Yemanjá (trad. candomblé song text)
Iemanjá do rio somos seus filhos (trad. candomblé song text)
My heart beats her waves at the shore of the world and writes upon it her signature in tears with the words “I love thee.”

Translation:

Yemanjá, protect us and fill us with contentment
Yemanja of the river/waters, we are your children

– Traditional candomblé song texts, and Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), adapted by the composer
Language; Yoruba, Portuguese, English

$2.50 per licensed PDF