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Dale Trumbore
Dale Trumbore
Returning (SSAA)
A simple audience refrain illuminates this piece about waiting for what you love to return.
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Returning
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Returning
SSAA a cappella with audience refrain
Contemporary poet Laura Foley’s text for “Returning” describes watching and waiting for the return of wild geese—or any beloved thing—each passing year. This setting of her poem features a simple audience refrain that recurs three times. The refrain, included separately in the score’s program notes, may be re-printed in a program or easily taught through call-and-response before the piece is performed.
“Returning” was commissioned by Minnesota-based chorus Magpies & Ravens (Curtis Kettler, director).
Composer’s Notes
While this piece is secular, not sacred, it very much speaks to the idea of faith. At every performance of this piece that I’ve witnessed, I am continually astonished at how the simple audience refrain has the power to transform an audience of strangers into a community.
— Dale Trumbore
Text
I have learned this:
if you stay in one place long enough
they will return to you.
REFRAIN*
They will return to you,
they will return to you,
they will return.
The geese you saw leaving,
their feet rising into dark bodies.
They will return.
[REFRAIN]
All you need to do is watch the sun each day
as it tumbles through the sky
and they will come again.
[REFRAIN]
They will return, floating toward you,
their damp bodies
still trembling from flight.
— Laura Foley
*Note: Text for the refrain is not part of Laura Foley’s original poem.
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