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Joshua Shank
Joshua Shank (B&F Music)
Meditation (Whatever Happens)
A meditation on love and gratitude, this short piece can be put together quickly.
SATB and Piano
Need a short piece for your program? This work uses a drone as a departure point to meditate on a text by Wendell Berry about having gratitude for the gifts we’re given throughout our lives.
Composer’s Notes
One of the things I like most about a musical drone is that I always feel as if it invites me to really listen to the smaller pieces of architecture of a musical work; the microscopic details seem suddenly gargantuan in comparison to this one, constant thing that’s happening (in this case it’s the F-sharp pulsing in the piano) and we’re called on to contemplate these little things while we listen. This has always reminded me of some form of meditation, and when I combined some poems by Wendell Berry, that’s exactly what I was reminded of. I love the simple message in the poetry. It’s all love and beauty and gratitude; big things that might need to be somehow set in relief every now and then in order for us to figure out just exactly what they mean to each of us.
– Joshua Shank
Text
Whatever happens,
those who have learned
to love one another
have made their way
to the lasting world
and will not leave,
whatever happens.
This then may be the prayer without ceasing,
this beauty and gratitude, this moment.
Nothing
Is given that is not
Taken, and nothing taken
That was not first a gift.
Nothing.
By Wendell Berry (b. 1934)
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