I Sing

SATB and Oboe

Text by Melissa Lalonde

4 min duration

Hinshaw Music 2023

sample pages

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Commissioned by the Exultate Chamber Singers.

AUDIO

“I Sing” was written to honour Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt as she retires from the Exultate Chamber Singers.

It speaks to the thousands of lives Dr. A has inspired and influenced throughout her musical career, how she shapes and moulds not only our voices, but our souls.

Poetry written by Melissa Lalonde, and written specifically for Dr. Apfelstadt.

Oboe – Clare Scholtz (Univ. of Toronto)

Recorded in rehearsal by the composer

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“To a Conductor”
I push, I pull, I shape, I mold
the clay of voices, fresh and cold
pulled from the bottom of the lakes
of souls who fear, or long, or wait

to sing.

With care, I gently move the air
to dry the patterns I’ve prepared,
and in the hearth of each ignite
an inner pulse, a human right

to sing.

And when this work of art by flame
is set, I help to paint its strains
with inspiration, wit, and will,
until there is no need to fill,

I sing.