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For the singers of Sirens Choir

I caught a glimpse of her image in my garden, and for weeks tilled sand, silt, and soil, losing myself to the earth—still I could not root her there.

I caught a glimpse of her image in a nearby glade; for hours I rushed past the thin limbs of trees, confusing my breath with their whispering: you will never reach her there.

I rushed as far as a far-off cataract, and caught a silver glimpse of her image there. How many times my arms parted its waters—relentless waters that declined to release her there.

I caught a glimpse of her image in a fountain; with a frantic hand I split the stillness to retrieve her there.

I had all but lost her image, when something in me settled, then glanced back—

as if it were simply this she had been waiting for.

Or as if I too had waited, and been patient there.

Note from the poet:

Every choir is by definition a collective, and therefore a community—of voices, of course, but also of personalities and occupations, of pasts, presents, and futures. A community, in short, of stories. The beauty of every choir, I think, lies in this fundamental contradiction: that it exists as both “one voice” and “many voices.” In Her Image is at once a celebration of sisterhood, in honour of Sirens Choir, and an exploration of what it means to be a unison of “one” and “many.”

As with most of my writing, I had to walk through this poem in order to arrive at its ending; I too had to move through the garden, the glade, and the waterfall, in order to settle into the idea that togetherness is, perhaps, less a quest than an acknowledgment of what is already present. Togetherness might be something like a four-part, SSAA choir: a collective that recognizes its different stories, and lends its voice to celebrating them. A fountain that lifts many currents to form a pool that “glances back.”.

Note from the composer:

Mirroring the poem and the journey it describes, through the music I tried to evoke a sense of curiousity, longing, and at times, uneasiness. To convey this, as the piece unfolds it explores a number of musical ideas and textures, all the while with a steady growing sense of unease underneath (as the search for "her image" continues). Eventually, she sees a glimpse of what she has been searching for somewhere unexpected. The music then begins to shift and settle as she discovers "her image" quite close to where she began her journey.