This One Was One

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instrumentation: SATB voices divisi, piano

year composed: 2023 | 5 minutes

Before I sat down to compose "This One Was One" I knew I wanted to explore a different type of choral style than I had been writing up to that point. Luckily, Gertrude Stein's large body of work gave me some direction.
I wrote this piece for the Choral Arts Initiative's PREMIERE | Project festival. My friend Kyle –– who I met over social media but given the long distance between us, had never met me in person –– lived close to the festival's campus, and so we planned to spend time together while I was at the festival. I decided to dedicate the piece to him, choosing a poem of Stein's that captures a beautiful friendship such as ours. Stein and Pablo Picasso had a special, long-term friendship that inspired art and writing from the both of them, and Stein's poem "Picasso," which I chose to set. the excerpts I chose from the poem is as follows: 

"one whom some were certainly following was one who was completely charming this one was working and something was coming then something was coming out of this one then this one was one being one having something being coming out of him this one was working this one was always having something that was coming out of this one that was a charming thing, a lovely thing, a very pretty thing, a clear thing, a simple, solid, interesting, complicated, perplexing, disconcerting, disturbing, repellent thing one whom some were certainly following was one who was completely charming this one was one who was working this one was not one working to have anything come out of him he was working, he was not every completely working he did have some following, they were always following him he was one having something coming out of him, something having meaning some were certainly following him. he was one who was working he was not ever completely working one"

The text is bizarre, but electric and tender amongst other things. I felt inspired to keep that high energy in the music through body percussion, hocketing, and a constantly-moving, minimalist piano part.