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About the Composer
Saunder Choi
Saunder Choi Music
Surviving the Blaze
Surviving the Blaze is a choral work that reflects on rediscovery and resilience in the aftermath of isolation, social upheaval, and collective trauma, exploring what truly matters in rebuilding relationships and communities.
SATB choir and piano
Surviving the Blaze is a poignant choral composition that explores themes of rediscovery, resilience, and transformation in the wake of isolation, social unrest, and collective trauma. With text by Minneapolis poet Annette Schiebout, this piece delves into the emotional and social upheavals following a pandemic and societal uprisings, asking vital questions about what truly matters and what needs to be rebuilt in our relationships, communities, and systems.
Composer’s Notes
When Mike McGaghie and I started talking about a new commission for Macalester, it was around the time that a piece I wrote for Vox Femina – Our Streets, A Symphony Again – was receiving its premiere. That piece was about the city of West Hollywood “reopening” after COVID isolation and quarantine. I thought it would be a great idea to look deeper into “reopening” stories from different cities. My friend Brian Sonia-Wallace (@rentpoet), who wrote the text for Our Streets then introduced me to Minneapolis based poet Annette Schiebout.
Surviving the Blaze is about rediscovery amidst and after a time of isolation and plague – past relationships, a city one calls home, the magic of nature, the heightened need for systemic change after the murder of innocent lives… Surviving a pandemic and a major social uprising posed the questions: What are the essentials? What do we want and what else needs to be “rediscovered”?
-Saunder Choi
Text
If I need to survive
a plague that rocked the globe locked
down loaded up
on supplies, hoarded
fear behind hidden
faces, zoomed in to look at
essentials, I chose you
to dig anxious toes out of a broken second wound
remember: the second break up, burn, then
we stole sunsets and empty
beaches, rocks our feet learned
to uncover to carry to the barren
shore of distance, yet
connection on a platform
we walked circles around
lakes, first swimming
tackling to the bottom
sand stuck to feet
then watching waves freeze until we could
fly kites on safely
frozen we crossed over shorelines we learned
all lives can’t matter until
we admitted some lives have mattered more
the buildings are still boarded
remembering the hope howl full
rage recalling havoc the glass broke
fire blazed out the hearts
of people we finally heard
-Annette Schiebout
$3.00 per licensed PDF
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