The Red Wheelbarrow
Composer’s Note: “The Red Wheelbarrow,” an innovative environmental/imagist poem I first read as a teenager, struck me as an alluring and joyful means to immerse in a commission by Austin’s Inversion Ensemble for their Planet Home project. The score blossomed during a fellowship at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, a pastoral setting that nurtured embracing the poem’s vivid landscape. The piano provides a repeating foundation over which the choir playfully evokes the spare text, using variations of the initial theme throughout. There is a contemplative moment midway, then the pulse resumes, concluding with a gleeful repetition of the last line.
| Duration: | 1-5 Minutes |
| Descriptive Tags: | American, Animals, Birds, Carol, Celebratory, Comfort, Community, Dream, Earth Week, Food, Forest, Fruitful Earth, Fun, Humorous, Inspiration, Joy, Light, Metaphysical, Nature, Poetry, Project : Encore, Spring, Sun, Sweet, Thanksgiving, Time, Traditional, trees, Unity, Virgin Mary, War |
| Voicing: | SATB |
| Instrumentation: | Piano |
| Language: | English |
| Sacred or Secular: | Secular |
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