Description

Chilean poet, educator, and diplomat, Gabriela Mistral’s, Meciendo (“Rocking”), was published in her 1924 collection of poems called Ternura (“Tenderness”). Primarily an elementary school teacher at the time, Mistral’s early poems often focused on themes of children and motherhood. The central image of this poem is a mother rocking her child amidst the sound of the sea and the wind outside. She is comforted by the loving wind and waves and by the unseen hand of the “Heavenly Father [who] silently rocks thousands of worlds”.

Meciendo was commissioned by Harmonia, a nine-member acappella choir, whose nine independent parts dictated the structure of the piece. The most prominent soprano solo is sung in English, with echoes of Mistral’s Spanish chanted in the background evoking the wind and waves. Meciendo is the winner of the 2007 Sorel Medallion, an international choral competition sponsored by the Sorel Organization.