Augusta Read Thomas : !HOPE (2017)For SSSAA ChoirDuration: c. 8 minutesFormat: 16-page Octavo ScoreAlso available for TTTBB Choir (NMP1027)An elegant, musical braid of the E.E. Cummings text between the five equally important vocal parts (either SSSAA or TTTBB) starts very delicately on quiet and poetic perfect fifth. Gradually, across its 8 minute duration, the vocal colours and lyric imagery unfold with passionate energy to a radiant and intense climax. This is followed by a peaceful, optimistic coda which brings !HOPE to a still, meditative culmination. Members of the Wellesley College Chamber Singers described the song with these words: “reflective, grounded, ethereal, reminiscent, purposeful at how it takes its time to express the poem, suspension of time and place with a contrast of contradiction and movement, glassy, fluid and efflorescent.” Augusta Read Thomas
