SATB choral, a cappella, immigration.
When conductor Matthew Robertson asked me to write a piece centered on immigrant voices, I found myself trying to find a unifying element tying together the diversity of immigrant stories. I read records and ledgers from Ellis and Angel Islands and archival newspaper accounts of why people made dangerous, terrifying journeys to the New World. I read poetry and graffiti from walls of detention centers and speeches from those
asserting their basic humanity and right to equal treatment while being denied both by those in power. I thought about my own experiences as an immigrant, the combined fear and hope and uncertainty that drew me forwards to a new place.
I realized early in my reading that there really is no unified voice of immigrants. We have come from a hundred different places for an infinite number of individual reasons, united only in our search for hope and a better life. (See score for continuation)
