Darkness is my only Friend

An intense beautiful setting of the darkest passage from the biblical Psalms, this work offers both choir and audience a cathartic space for lamentation and meditation. The text, while ancient, resonates with relevance today as it explores the kind of sadness and abandonment that many today experience as a result of mental health issues. It features an easily assembled aleatoric opening, and after several gorgeous climaxes, has a slow fade out in volume (the text is replaced with pure sound representing the pain that can't be expressed in words). This work features a brief solo for tenor. This intense sacred work for SATB (with divisi) is suitable to a wide range of performing forces as few as 12 in a chamber setting to as many as 60 singers. From the Program Notes: "This raw, unfiltered lament captures the devastation of loss and fractured community that millions around the world have experienced. Whether it be in the death of a parent or child from cancer or the coronavirus or from police brutality, the violent injustice of loss has marked the global experience of 2020. It was my desire to create music that could provide some sort of cathartic release, enabling us to reflect and lament."