there’s something i have to say

SATB, a cappella

1. crisis of confidence

2. healing measures

3. rules to live by

4. howl

5. teacher lover lamb

Program notes

I love so many settings of the mass. William Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices from around 1594 was meant to be sung in secret to avoid punishment from anti-Catholic sentiment in Tudor England. Swiss composer Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir from the 1920s spent 40 years in a drawer before being released by the composer because he “considered it to be a matter between God and myself.” Another favorite of mine, Leonard Bernstein’s gigantic two-hour theatrical piece, MASS, was written at the behest of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to celebrate the 1971 opening of the John. F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. (which then-President Richard Nixon was famously recorded on tape attempting to avoid due to the composer’s lefty politics). Essentially, over the centuries, writing a mass has become to the choral world what writing a symphony might be for orchestral composers: an ancient form so well-established in the medium that the listener can easily hear the unique aspects of a particular work.

But all those works use the traditional Latin texts of the Catholic Church and, as someone who doesn’t ascribe to any faith, I always felt a little iced out of having a full experience with those works; like it was messaging I wasn’t really included in, or that there wasn’t a container for who I am in those works. That’s not to say those pieces can’t transcend religious boundaries—at the very least they’re treasured historical artifacts that show a cultural through line over the course of more than a millennium—but the notion that myself and a host of other choral singers, listeners, and composers might consistently be forced into an areligious relationship with these masses lead me to the desire to write what you’re about to hear.

Even with this tension, it always felt like there was some buried honesty in the mass for me and, besides that, the ritual of saying something cathartic, or meditative, or revelatory seemed deeply human and closely tied to experiences we all take part in at times in our lives. We all have to ask for help sometimes; we all have certain things that we cherish; we all feel pain; we all move in and out of these liminal therapeutic relationships, spaces, or mindsets; and being routinely–ceremonially–reminded of these moments in our lives can be incredibly useful.

That idea of ceremony is the reason for the double meaning in the title, because the Latin mass ordinaries—the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei texts we’ve all likely heard at a choral concert—are the parts of the mass that must be spoken or sung every Sunday; you’re required to say them. Hence, there’s something i have to say, a work about the endless process of becoming the best version of yourself.

—

crisis of confidence, is the “Kyrie” of my mass and, because that movement of the genre has such a perceptible, repetitious form, the text by American poet Robert Ressler offers a refrain. The question that keeps returning alludes to the notion that sometimes–to quote theologian Nadia Bolz-Weber–“I have only my confession…of my own real brokenness…to offer.” By the final bars of the movement, though, a transformation has taken place.

—

The words of thirteenth-century Sufi mystic Rumi (1207-1273) usher in the next movement scored for double choir. His poetry–presented in a legendary English translation by American poet Coleman Barks–is made up of words of praise and grief; gratitude and play. healing measures is the first time the mass looks joyfully outward as the first beams of light begin to appear.

But stepping out of a dark place takes work, so Rumi’s poetry is presented alongside another text by Ressler about a culinary process called nixtamalization during which raw corn is prepared in such a way that adds nutritional value, detoxifies it, and adds a more enticing flavor and aroma. Here, this laborious marvel of indigenous science is used as a metaphor for the transformative power of self-healing.

—

In the English-speaking world, the title of the Catholic statement of belief from the mass—the Credo—is a shorthand for a general list of ideals which guide our actions. I’ve always been fascinated by principles like this that various religions and governments of the world emphasize in order to form a functional society, and rules to live by is my attempt to write a libretto which includes a plurality of them. To do so, I gathered excerpts from the Bible, the tenets of the Bahá’í faith, a declaration from a 1989 meeting of socialists in Stockholm, a mission statement from a non-profit organization, and even a pop song from the 1990s.

However, because choirs are built on micro versions of these larger societal agreements, I also asked the members of The Choral Project to finish the phrase “I believe...” as many times as they wanted. Some of the responses I got were cheeky (“I believe there’s no singing allowed in the bedroom”), while others were heartfelt (“I believe in my children”), but together they all formed a beautiful metaphorical quilt showing how the musical community which has been hard at work here for over 25 years lives its collective life.

—

The first line of Allen Ginsberg’s landmark 1956 Beatnik poem, Howl, is iconic in American poetry: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.” What’s lesser known is the fourth and final section of that lengthy text–which Ginsberg subtitled simply, “Footnote to Howl”–in which he describes a multitude of things that are “holy” to him. As a composer who came up in the choral tradition, I immediately thought of the countless settings of the Sanctus text I’ve sung over the years; a text which shares the same character of shouting to the heavens that the long, loud cry of “Howl” holds for me as well.

I connected deeply with the contents of Ginsberg’s list of things that are holy. Sacred to him are things like his mentally ill mother, his partner of over 40 years (Peter), the body, the soul, the saxophone, the city, and suffering itself. The list represented here in howl is lengthy, beautiful, and embracing, and I’d encourage anyone who’s unfamiliar with the footnote to this epic American poem to seek it out and find yourself in it somewhere.

—

Sometimes, when a burden–be it emotional, psychological, physical, or financial–becomes too much for us to bear, many of us seek out someone else to shoulder it for a moment while we catch our breath. teacher lover lamb is a work about the various roles others in our lives can inhabit when we occasionally need a little extra help.

there’s something i have to say was commissioned by The Choral Project (Daniel Hughes, conductor) and received its premiere on June 24, 2023.

Performed by The Choral Project (Daniel Hughes, conductor)