Take This Thread/ Le fil que je suis (SATB choral/piano score)

Conductor’s note:

Katerina Gimon’s Take This Thread perfectly sets the words of her collaborator poet Lauren Peat. Conceived as a bilingual (French and English) virtual choir project to unite five Canadian choirs during the pandemic, the music both captures the vulnerability of the time and evokes hope for a better, stronger future. There is a wonderful musical arc to the piece with a climactic middle, a serene end and interesting tonal modulations. The melodic material conjures musical traditions of the Canadian East coast. Rhythmic syncopations can be easily worked out. An obligato violin part runs through the piece depicting that tenuous thread that holds us together. Take This Thread is a beautiful work that will find a home in many concert programs.
— Mark Vuorinen, Artistic Director, Grand Philharmonic Choir

Composer’s note:

I began writing Take This Thread / Le fil que je suis in late 2020, amidst the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns in Canada. Perhaps because of this timing, when I first read Lauren’s poem two moments stuck out to me in particular, which became central to my musical setting. The first was the image of a “thread” that is strengthened when held together. This, I decided, could be represented by an expressive solo violin line — beginning at first as an independent “voice” then interweaving and becoming one with the choir. The second moment was the line of text “it’s not the rift, but how we listened,” which repeats twice in the final lines of the poem. For me, this evoked the image of someone calling out into a barren space and waiting for a response — perhaps a depiction of the vulnerability that is required when we open ourselves up in order to overcome difficulty and begin healing. I decided to shape the structure of the work around this idea — the first half of the piece depicts the “call” out into the open, the violin solo (at rehearsal letter G) the vulnerable moments of waiting for a response, and the final stanza the long-awaited response and the first glimmers of healing. — Katerina Gimon

Poet’s note:

When I was approached to write a poem for the Sing Across Canada Project, the coronavirus pandemic had transformed the landscape of choral music as we knew it. Many arts organizations were––and tragically, still are––hanging by a thread, the vital lifeblood of concerts and audiences suspended indefinitely.

The Sing Across Canada Project, as its name suggests, was an attempt to offer a different kind of lifeblood: a piece of choral music that would virtually crisscross the country, through the almighty power of video conferencing. And so I began to think more about that hanging thread––about what it might mean to nurture it, to embolden and praise it. After many false starts and faulty lines, I arrived at the poem Take This Thread / Le fil que je suis: a meditation on finding improbable ways of strengthening the threads between us, even and especially in the darkest of times. — Lauren Peat