Holy Waters
$4.50
- A minimum purchase of 10 copies is required, however, please purchase a copy for each performer.
- After receiving payment, you will be emailed a printable pdf at the email address you provide with your order.
Description
pond 1: womb
pond 8: river
pond 5: font
three pieces for SSAATTBB acappella chorus
Holy Waters is a culmination of three artists’ work – a painter, a poet, and a composer. We came together through an interdisciplinary commission project initiated by the Ars Nova Singers of Boulder, Colorado. As a response to Elizabeth Woody’s mixed media painting, Pond 17, poet Erin Robertson wrote seventeen short poems, each a reflection on a different body of water. I set three poems from this collection – pond 1: womb, pond 5: font, and pond 8: river – inspired by the unifying themes of birth, rebirth, baptism, and redemption. Robertson’s spare language in these poems suggested to me a meditative setting that repeats and cycles through many iterations of the text.
pond 1: womb
water heartbeat rock inhale exhale step sway
pond 8: river
difficult names Susquehanna Monongahela Cuyahoga Schuylkill Allegheny syllabled voice of absent displaced slaughtered power behind steel sluggish broad-bodied curves
pond 5: font
candlesmoke and choking incense grease of chrism itch of lawn and lace tipping back an
unsafe angle tears salt holy water presented named claimed
