Remembering the Sea (Se Souvenant de la Mer, for chorus and ensemble) (2016)
INSTRUMENTATION: ob/hn/pf/vn.va.vc
DURATION: 18 Minutes
Original version is for chorus and orchestra.
Composer note:
I’d planned originally to write a work for the SF Girl’s Chorus with a wide range of Sappho translations made through the centuries, but following the Paris and San Bernadino massacres I felt a urgent need to respond through music, so I asked Kai Hoffman-Krull to create a text. Remembering the Sea is in 3 movements — the first a song of memory, the second a kind of Dies Irae and the third a song that asks many questions but finds no answers.
Remembering the Sea (Se Souvenant de la Mer) was generously commissioned by the San Francisco Girls Chorus for this collaboration with the Knights at today’s concert.
— Aaron Jay Kernis
Work themes: Nature