Sure on this Shining Night (2021)

Instrumentation: SATB choir with divisi, string trio (2 violins, 1 viola)

Estimated performance duration: ~4:30

About the piece

This piece was written in the spring of my sophomore year at St. Olaf. That semester was pretty tough for me physically, academically, and emotionally, and, with that all on top of the pandemic restrictions of my college, I felt very alone and overwhelmed a lot of the time. Nothing was popping into my head that really stuck on the composition side of things, either.

Finally, I found this poem written by James Agee and basically instantly fell in love with it. To me, the poem felt like complete rest embodied in words (which is what I sorely needed that semester) and was perfect in every aspect to be set to a choral piece. I'm pretty proud of how it turned out.

After I finished it, I then realized that both Samuel Barber and Morten Lauridsen, two compositional greats if you haven't heard of them, had set this text, so I quickly felt like my setting would be very inferior. It also likely cannot be published (since only Lauridsen and Barber have published works with permission to use the text).