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About the Composer

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

The Freshness (SSAA)

Name: The Freshness (SSAA)
SKU: JS-003
Availability: InStock

Joan Szymko

Opening with a unison declamation, the vocal texture becomes more intense and dense.

Choral

treble choir

1-2 instruments, piano

moderate

Difficulty: 3

Duration: 3-5 min.

JS-003

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Alternative Versions

The Freshness

View SATB Version

SSAA, speaker, harp (or piano)

A sensuous setting of a Coleman Barks translation of the beloved Sufi poet, Rumi. Opening with a unison declamation, the vocal texture becomes more intense/dense as Rumi’s text carries the listener deeper into his ecstatic realization: I can’t explain the goings or the comings, you enter suddenly and I am nowhere again Inside the majesty. The rhythmic harp accompaniment was inspired by the traditional kora music of Mali, West Africa). The accompaniment work translates well to piano.

Text

When it’s cold and raining,
you are more beautiful.
And the snow brings me
even closer to your lips.
The inner secret, that which was never born,
you are that freshness, and I am with you now.
I can’t explain the goings,
or the comings. You enter suddenly,
and I am nowhere again.
Inside the majesty.

– Rumi (translated by C. Barks)

$2.25 per licensed PDF