collision & joy

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collision & joy is about walking the well-trodden sidewalk of life — sometimes mindlessly and sometimes with intention — and finding those brief unexpected “collisions” or moments of joy in our togetherness. 

This work sets the words of poet Lauren Peat and was commissioned and premiered by withonevoice on July 18, 2023 in Macomb, Illinois, USA.

Note from the composer
collision & joy is about walking the well-trodden sidewalk of life — sometimes mindlessly and sometimes with intention — and finding those brief unexpected “collisions” or moments of joy in our togetherness. The recurring ostinato that forms the backbone of the piece represents the dailyness of our lives, which over time shapes into and arc that is common to all of us. At first, this motive builds an almost plodding-like texture but soon intermingles with other musical ideas, sparking something new and transcendent, before returning transformed in the final measures of the piece. — K.G.

Note from the poet
Human beings, unlike other species, are keenly aware of the finitude of their existence. Unlike other species, then, we are also keenly aware of the singularity of our existence: no one else has ever inhabited (or will ever inhabit) this set of circumstances, these coordinates in space and time. This duality—awareness of finitude and singularity both—may be our birthright.
And yet the conditions of our lives so often require us to forget this awareness, to set it aside in the name of obligation, occupation, the material fragments that make up our days. In rare moments, however—over a glance, a gesture, an untraceable moment of complicity—we might be astonished into remembering our shared predicament: you, like me, find yourself precisely here, precisely now.
The ultimate paradox, of course, is that in recognizing our shared finitude we momentarily transcend it: we partake in a more unbounded state of being. 
— L.P.

Duration

3'30"

Year of composition

2024

Voicing(s)/ensemble

SATB with divisi

Licensing

© Katerina Gimon
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Purchase/view score

Please contact me to purchase.