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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

Sail Away (SATB)

Name: Sail Away (SATB)
SKU: JS-131
Availability: InStock

Joan Szymko

A tender, lyrical, metaphorical pilgrimage to “no country and to no end.”

Difficulty: 3

Duration: 3-5 min.

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Alternative Versions

Sail Away

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SATB, piano

A gentle, buoyant piano ostinato sets the tone for this setting of a poem from Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel Prize winning Gitangali collection. A bass section solo leads the way on a tender, lyrical, metaphorical pilgrimage to “no country and to no end.” Originally commissioned by Peterborough Male Voice Choir for a 2024 Festival of T/B choirs in the UK. This SATB voicing commissioned by Choral Chameleon ( NYC).

Text

Early in the day it was whispered that 
we should sail in a boat, 
only thou and I, and never a soul in the world 
would know of this our pilgrimage 
to no country and to no end.

In that shoreless ocean, at thy silently listening
smile my songs would swell in melodies, 
free as waves, free from all bondage of words.

Is the time not come yet? 
Are there works still to do? 
Lo, the evening has come down upon the shore 
and in the fading light the seabirds 
come flying to their nests.

Who knows when the chains will be off, 
and the boat, like the last glimmer of sunset, 
vanish into the night?

-Rabindranath Tagore 
No. 42 Gitangali (Song Offerings)

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