Sowash: "We’ve Come to Know” for SATB with oboe

Almost every Sunday morning I am to be found in the tenor section of Cincinnati's Mt. Auburn Presbyterian Church’s Chancel Choir.

We are really good!  Twenty to thirty voices strong, many with considerable experience in music theatre, opera, jazz, and instrumental classical music.

The Music Minister, Chris Miller, cares about each of us as people, not only as singers.  We choristers care about each other; we know what’s going on in each other's lives and that singing in the choir nourishes us.

Chris sets the tone.  He’s very good at what he does and, what’s more, he knows how to maintain a spirit of fun even when we’re hard at work on a challenging piece.

I’ve written about twenty anthems for our choir.  Today I want to share our rendition of one of them, presented in a concert of my choral music a few years ago.

The title, “We’ve Come to Know,” and the lyrics are by Cincinnati poet W.B. “Bucky” Ignatius, a long-time friend of the congregation and sometime tenor in the choir.

The tunes are mine and it was my idea to feature a solo oboe in collaboration with the choir, instead of the usual piano or organ.  The extreme opposite of the choral sonority, the sharp oboe sound pierces, slices, and ornaments what the singers are doing.  The solo oboe opens and closes the piece and comments on what comes in between.

An ancient composer’s trick is to establish opposites at the beginning of a piece and then reconcile them by the end.  Music is rich in opposites waiting to be reconciled:  fast/slow, major/minor, loud/soft/ high/low.  Musical “colors” can also be presented as opposites.  Oboe vs. choir, for example.

Does this piece reconcile these opposing colors into a satisfying design?

See what you think.

To hear "We’ve Come to Know” sung by the Mt. Auburn Presbyterian Chancel Choir under Chris Miller, with my oboist friend Amy Dennison, click here:
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/come_to_know.mp3

To see a PDF of the score, click here:
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/come_to_know.pdf