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Behind Me—dips Eternity—
Before Me—Immortality—
Myself—the Term between—
Death but the Drift of Eastern Gray,
Dissolving into Dawn away,
Before the West begin—
”This poem by Emily Dickinson is, as much of her poetry, about life, death, and the afterlife. What happens to us when we die? And is death just another beginning? A new dawn?
The piece arose from a composer’s residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Canada, where I had the opportunity to work with all professional choir Pro Coro Canada, their conductor Michael Zaugg, and the Danish/Swedish conductor Lone Larsen. The focus point for the piece was to explore how I, as a composer, could find new ways to utilise the many different timbres of the human voice and what it is capable of producing, and even if I, by no means explored any extreme qualities of the voice, I broadened my own perspective as a composer.
In the music, I have tried to bring out the conflict between death and dawn, and musically I want people to feel that they are on the verge of something they do not know. The fear we feel, facing something new and uncertain, standing in the middle looking back, not knowing if we are at the end of the road, the sunset, or at the beginning of something new: the dawn.
The piece was originally written for mixed voices and premiered by Pro Coro Canada at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity on the 29th of February 2020, under the direction of conductor Katy Harmer. Lone Larsen later premiered the piece in Europe, and Sweden, with her ensemble VoNo, as a part of their conceptual performance “I Am Like Many”. This version for upper voices was premiered by the Vermont Chamber Artists on the 25th of July 2024 at Isham Family Farm, Williston, VT, USA, conducted by Jessie Pierpont.” – Henrik Dahlgren
