Outer Space, Inner Light

As midwinter shows the first hints of spring to come, I’m excitedly awaiting the premiere of Outer Space, Inner Light; I wrote the text in response to a choral score by the amazing Mari Alice Conrad, who wrote that score in response to a different poem, Book of Songs,* which was the title and text…

At First Light

Here’s Toronto’s Exultate Choir performing a morning meditation of mine, set for choir by Mari Alice Conrad. Her setting received the Stephen Chatman Award for student composition this spring at Podium, Canada’s national choral symposium, when this video was recorded. Here’s the original post of At First Light, which I wrote in May 2020 as…

Choral Collaboration News

In just over 2 years of collaboration, Mari Alice Conrad has composed a number of remarkable settings for various of my poems. Beyond delighted to announce that Journey Song has arrived for purchase on Cypress Choral Music. Meanwhile, in Toronto, Exultate Choir will feature the Stephen Chatman Award winning At First Light on May 23rd…

Journey Song Arrives!

After a pandemic-induced wait of about 16 months, it’s here! The World Premiere of composer Mari Alice Conrad’s SATB Choir setting of Journey Song, sung here in a live recording in Toronto by commissioning choir Babel, under the baton of Elaine Choi. I first published a version of Journey Song in my 2009 collection, Fifth…

Words made Song: another collaboration

Canadian composer Mari Alice Conrad’s latest piece, The Peculiar Dances of Shifting Minds, inspired in part by this poem of mine which honours my late mother. Also on the program, new works by composers Athena Loredo and Alice Ping Yee Ho; all performed by Vancouver’s Allegra Chamber Orchestra, under the leadership of Janna Sailor. Congratulations…