Summer

SATB, a cappella

When I spoke to poet Robert Ressler about the inspiration behind his poem, he told me it came to him when he had been helping a classroom of kindergarteners with an art lesson. None of the students were having great success with the activity, but one little girl—the youngest child in the class—was constructing extraordinarily intricate flowers out of paper.

The poem he was inspired to write is about disadvantaged youth born into a world beyond their control, and their collective hope for something better.  In my setting of the poem, I attempted to capture that optimism and gently propel the little girl's hopeful journey forward a bit.

Spring is one of four a cappella works which uses the seasons as its inspiration; all of which end on the same word.  They can be performed starting on any of the movements as long as the cycle progresses in the cyclical order of the seasons.

Summer was commissioned by the Sunday Night Singers (Mike McCullough, conductor).

The Text

By Robert Ressler (b. 1988)

The last child of snow
          builds flowers with her hands,
while by stardust
          the scales are weighted against her.

She dreams to be more than the blizzard;
          that her fields will occupy
          the eternity whispered between
          baby's breath and the last red beat.

It is summer, and the sun is already falling.

Performed by the Sunday Night Singers
(Mike McCullough, conductor).