Take This Thread / Le fil que je suis
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Take This Thread/Le fil que je suis, with a bilingual text Lauren Peat, explores the connections or 'threads' that hold us together and enable us to support each other in difficult times.
Both the music and poetry were commissioned by the Grand Philharmonic Choir with the Symphony Nova Scotia & Halifax Camerata Singers, la Société chorale de Saint-Lambert, and the Richard Eaton Singers. It was premiered virtually on June 19, 2021.
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Duration
6'20"
Year of composition
2021
Voicing(s)/ensemble
SATB, piano, & violin
SSA, piano, & violin Licensing
Purchase/view score
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Conductor’s note:
Katerina Gimon’s Take This Thread/Le fil que je suis perfectly sets the words of her collaborator poet Lauren Peat. Conceived as a bilingual (French and English) virtual choir project to unite five Canadian choirs during the pandemic, the music both captures the vulnerability of the time and evokes hope for a better, stronger future. There is a wonderful musical arc to the piece with a climactic middle, a serene end and interesting tonal modulations. The melodic material conjures musical traditions of the Canadian East coast. Rhythmic syncopations can be easily worked out. An obligato violin part runs through the piece depicting that tenuous thread that holds us together. Take This Thread is a beautiful work that will find a home in many concert programs.
— Mark Vuorinen, Artistic Director, Grand Philharmonic Choir
Note from the composer
I began writing Take This Thread/Le fil que je suis in late 2020, amidst the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. At a time of year usually marked by joy and celebration, the world seemed to be becoming evermore distant and divided. For me, writing this work became part of my own quest to find hope and music in those months of fatigue, and eerie quiet: a “thread” or song with the power to reach across distance, inspire hope, and bring us together, though we may be physically apart. As Lauren so beautifully writes in the text: “it’s not the rift, but how we listened.” And so I listened, and found our thread, our song––which grows stronger when held together. — K.G.
Note from the poet
When I was approached to write a poem for the Sing Across Canada Project, the coronavirus pandemic had transformed the landscape of choral music as we knew it. Many arts organizations were––and tragically, still are––hanging by a thread, the vital lifeblood of concerts and audiences suspended indefinitely.
The Sing Across Canada Project, as its name suggests, was an attempt to offer a different kind of lifeblood: a piece of choral music that would virtually crisscross the country, through the almighty power of video conferencing. And so I began to think more about that hanging thread; about what it might mean to nurture it, to embolden and praise it––to find improbable ways of strengthening the bonds between us, even and especially in the darkest of times. — L.P.
Katerina Gimon’s Take This Thread/Le fil que je suis perfectly sets the words of her collaborator poet Lauren Peat. Conceived as a bilingual (French and English) virtual choir project to unite five Canadian choirs during the pandemic, the music both captures the vulnerability of the time and evokes hope for a better, stronger future. There is a wonderful musical arc to the piece with a climactic middle, a serene end and interesting tonal modulations. The melodic material conjures musical traditions of the Canadian East coast. Rhythmic syncopations can be easily worked out. An obligato violin part runs through the piece depicting that tenuous thread that holds us together. Take This Thread is a beautiful work that will find a home in many concert programs.
— Mark Vuorinen, Artistic Director, Grand Philharmonic Choir
Note from the composer
I began writing Take This Thread/Le fil que je suis in late 2020, amidst the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. At a time of year usually marked by joy and celebration, the world seemed to be becoming evermore distant and divided. For me, writing this work became part of my own quest to find hope and music in those months of fatigue, and eerie quiet: a “thread” or song with the power to reach across distance, inspire hope, and bring us together, though we may be physically apart. As Lauren so beautifully writes in the text: “it’s not the rift, but how we listened.” And so I listened, and found our thread, our song––which grows stronger when held together. — K.G.
Note from the poet
When I was approached to write a poem for the Sing Across Canada Project, the coronavirus pandemic had transformed the landscape of choral music as we knew it. Many arts organizations were––and tragically, still are––hanging by a thread, the vital lifeblood of concerts and audiences suspended indefinitely.
The Sing Across Canada Project, as its name suggests, was an attempt to offer a different kind of lifeblood: a piece of choral music that would virtually crisscross the country, through the almighty power of video conferencing. And so I began to think more about that hanging thread; about what it might mean to nurture it, to embolden and praise it––to find improbable ways of strengthening the bonds between us, even and especially in the darkest of times. — L.P.