Product Description:
PDF score of Joy
Please note: 10 copy minimum. Please purchase one copy per member of your choir.
Please note: 10 copy minimum. Please purchase one copy per member of your choir.
Program Note:
Joy was commissioned by Dr. Sharon J. Paul to be performed by the University of Oregon Chamber Choir at the 2025 Alumni Event, UO Choir Reunion: 25 Years of SJP at UO. When selecting a text for this project, we were drawn to poems with celebratory and hopeful themes, wanting a piece that would remind people of the joy of making music together. So, we landed on Joy by Harlem Renaissance poet Clarissa Scott Delany (1901-1927). This evocative poem highlights the vibrancy of rejoicing after emerging from bewilderment and despair. I was immediately drawn to Delany’s vibrant metaphors and hard-won jubilance: a reminder that we hold both the dark times and the light, ultimately striving to abandon ourselves to joy - laughing, singing, and making joyful music with one another.
Instrumentation:
SSAATTBB unaccompanied choir
Recording:
Score:
Text:
Joy
Joy shakes me like the wind that lifts a sail,
Like the roistering wind
That laughs through stalwart pines.
It floods me like the sun
On rain-drenched trees
That flash with silver and green.
I abandon myself to joy--
I laugh—I sing.
Too long have I walked a desolate way,
Too long stumbled down a maze
Bewildered.
-Clarissa Scott Delany (1901-1927)
Joy shakes me like the wind that lifts a sail,
Like the roistering wind
That laughs through stalwart pines.
It floods me like the sun
On rain-drenched trees
That flash with silver and green.
I abandon myself to joy--
I laugh—I sing.
Too long have I walked a desolate way,
Too long stumbled down a maze
Bewildered.
-Clarissa Scott Delany (1901-1927)