Water Doesn't Drown

This piece was written for the 30th anniversary of the Piedmont Children's Choir, and is scored for three of their treble choirs. The text is by San Francisco poet Denise Newman, combining a short poem (going to water / going to seed . . .) from Denise's recent book The New Make Believe, which is set multiple times and for all three choirs, with texts that were newly written for this piece. The three new texts are sung by each choir individually.

Denise's new words wonderfully reflect aspects of the age group for each choir, moving from childhood to young adulthood. I wrote music that mirrors the thought and progression of those words. fog and a god has a headlong rushing and excitement, pool is to wade starts with a flowing gesture, but then becomes animated before slowing to become lost in its dreams and questions, streaming away picks up the placid dream from pool is before speeding to the “coursing, gushing, flooding stream”. The refrains (going to water) are more purely sonic, my way of celebrating the wonderful treble massed choir sound.