Boundless

A Journey of Your Own

Saunder Choi

Commissioned by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, composer and Boston Choral Ensemble alumnus Saunder Choi collaborated with poets Joey Vargas and Brian Sonia-Wallace (who write in Tagalog and English, respectively). Both Vargas’s Tagalog text and Sonia-Wallace’s English texts describe transformative journeys, with the bilingual setting reflecting Choi’s own experience as a Filipino immigrant now living in Los Angeles. The lyrics speak to the universal nature of change in the human experience and remind us that the journey itself is as important as the destination. In his own words, Choi wishes “whatever your story is, wherever your journey leads, may it be of your own choosing — always leading with love and courage.”

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Boundless

Katerina Gimon

One of Katerina Gimon’s earlier works, “Boundless” was first composed in 2012 for sopranos and altos, and this revised composition for four-part choir still heavily features the high voices. Aside from spoken lines of text at the end, which highlight the “boundless” theme, the piece is without words. Two distinct sections define the short work. The first half features ethereal, freely-flowing melody lines—many of which are structured as aleatoric music, in this case repeating according to the individual singers’ determination—as well as gliding, fluttering, and droning textures, all without a unified “pulse.” The second half contrasts by introducing a strong, dance-like groove. A solo soprano voice, heard briefly towards the beginning, playfully takes the foreground in the second half. Listen throughout for ways in which the composition expresses a spirit of, in Gimon’s words, “empowerment, exploration, and creativity.”

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Õhtul (Evening)

Pärt Uusberg

As a composer, Pärt Uusberg is best known for his choral music. He regularly uses poems by fellow Estonians as his texts, describing a kinship with the “Estonian nature and… spiritual thoughts about life” explored in their poetry. “Õhtul”’s text is by famed Estonian poet Ernst Enno (1875–1934), who was influenced by symbolism and mysticism, and whose work often plays with the repetitive sounds of words as much as their literal meaning. The poem highlights the profound, yet simple, beauty of a placid forest scene at dusk. Uusberg’s musical setting gently mirrors this. In the middle of the song, the poem’s final words, “sõuab kaugele”, or “far away,” are repeated, crescendoing into a moment of wistfulness and tension, before the reflectiveness returns and the music gradually fades into silence.

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Circles

Timothy Takach

In “Circles”, American composer Tim Takach crafts swirling, cyclical harmonies and layered phrases that paint the text of Wendall Berry’s poetry and embrace its themes of change and return. “Everything around us constantly changes and yet repeats throughout our lives,” writes Takach. “We come together and drift apart, lose someone and gain someone else, feel deep grief and profound joy. Berry finds joy in this, in the holding of each other as we join together and allow music to connect us.” 

Composed in 2021, Takach found that the global pandemic brought new meaning to Berry’s text and the way that the act of singing in a choir creates its own circle of community: “Now, at the tail end of this global pandemic (seemingly in its own hundred year circle), I dream about what I once took for granted: being with others, standing close, singing, joining hands in joy, completing a circle of my own.” 

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A Path to Hope

Katerina Gimon

“A Path to Hope” was composed by Canadian composer Katerina Gimon as part of the Sonic Timelapse Project, a collaborative choral art commissioning project created in response to the emotional impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on choral communities. Gimon was inspired by and draws fragments of text from the reflections of Canadian choral music educators during the early days of lockdown. “Each movement was composed as a short response to a specific idea, emotion, or question… as part of my own journey to finding hope in uncertain times,” writes Gimon. “However, although this piece was born during a unique time in our history, its themes of voicelessness, overcoming fear, and seeking hope, are timeless and universal.” 

The first movement of A Path to Hope, “Without Voice,” is performed entirely through body percussion and is a play on the morse code spelling of the word “voiceless,” embodying the struggle to find one’s “‘voice’ in a silent world where no one is listening.” In the second movement titled “The Fear,” the choir’s repeated mantra illustrates a community building the strength to face its fears and embrace the constancy of change. Finally, the third movement “Believe” offers both an acknowledgement of an uncertain future and a “reminder of our own resilience and the power of hope.”

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I Found Night

Connor Koppin

Connor Koppin’s “I Found Night” is a haunting exploration of restlessness and how it can dampen the human spirit. Commissioned by Xavier High School in 2020, Koppin chose to set the music to poetry by his friend Greg DiMarco. In the text, an insomniac speaker recounts their experience of waking up from peaceful sleep—filled with dreams of “radiant earth-bound joy”—to the harshness of “night,” with its “cold unwavering eyes.” Koppin describes his arrangement as a “pictorial setting” of the poem. It begins with a somber tone, as each voice part gently cascades into another, then crescendos toward its wistful climax, where the speaker yearns to “dream the sun…[and] stars.” While the piece ultimately concludes a pessimistic note, “I Found Night” is a testament to how our dreams can offer us hope—how they remind us of our limitless potential, in the face of a cruel and unforgiving world.

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Tap Tap

Sydney Guillaume

Inspired by the colorful buses and taxis in Port-au-Prince, Haitian-American composer Sydney Guillaume’s “Tap-Tap” is a kind of musical call to action. Originally composed in 2012, this upbeat piece embodies Guilaume’s “highly spirited” style through its intricate rhythm, dynamic voicing, and accelerated tempo. Its percussive, onomatopoeic title is a play on words that “encourag[es] people to ‘jump on the bus,’” metaphorically speaking, “and not let opportunities pass them by.” The Haitian Creole text, written by poet Louis Marie Célestin, rouses listeners to seize the moment by repeating commands like “Mache prese, mache prese” (“Hurry up, walk quickly!”) and “Leve kanpe! Leve kanpe!” (“Get up! Stand proud!”). Weaving these commands into a rambunctious melody, underlaid with syncopated harmony, Guillaume manages to intensify the urgency at play. The result? A renewed excitement about life—and, hopefully, newfound motivation to work toward collective progress.

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Butterfly

Mia Markaroff

Composer Mia Markaroff’s “Butterfly” debuted as the opening track on Finnish vocal ensemble Rajaton’s 2001 album Boundless. Makaroff had originally developed the lyrics and melody as her “self-therapy song,” helping her through struggles raising two small children after a divorce. The titular butterfly is newly hatched, marveling at the sun and sky and newfound love, with the bittersweet knowledge that its time is limited and fleeting. “Butterfly” opens with a classic pop 4-chord progression before opening up into its buoyant melody, primarily performed by the sopranos, that Makaroff complements with intricate harmony. Tentative, percussive vocalizations eventually give way to intensity, as when all voice parts repeat the words “Tomorrow I’ll die” in an outpouring of emotion. The piece then grows softer and ends abruptly, reflecting the final stages of the butterfly’s life—and reminding us to seek joy and fulfillment while we still can.

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Riuh (Chaotic Joy)

Tracy Wong

“Riuh” is Malay for “roaring, noisy, loud, boisterous, outburst”—a concept that courses viscerally through Malaysian composer Tracy Wong’s piece.  Written in 2023 for the World Symposium on Choral Music,  the text by Malaysian vocal artist Bihzhu encourages the listener to find beauty amongst chaos. Bihzhu believes “there is liberation when we’re able to embrace chaos with joy, a sense of vitality, of feeling fully alive.” To further embody this message, Riuh incorporates improvisation and vocal percussion, creating a striking example of complex noises, rhythms, and harmonies that weave together to form a piece unique to each performance.

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