Thomas, !Hope [Nimbus: NMP1028]

An elegant, musical braid of the E.E. Cummings text between the five equally important vocal parts (either SSSAA or TTTBB) starts very delicately on quiet and poetic perfect fifth. Gradually, across its 8 minute duration, the vocal colours and lyric imagery unfold with passionate energy to a radiant and intense climax. This is followed by a peaceful, optimistic coda which brings !HOPE to a still, meditative culmination. Members of the Wellesley College Chamber Singers described the song with these words: “reflective, grounded, ethereal, reminiscent, purposeful at hoe it takes its time to express the poem, suspension of time and place with a contrast of contradiction and movement, glassy, fluid and efflorescent.”