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Mixed Choir
LGBTQ+ Music

i love you to the moon & (2025)

for SATB choir and piano

Text: Chen Chen (b. 1989)
Duration: 5 minutes
Difficulty: 2/4

Commissioned by Accord Ensemble (Erin Craig, artistic director) for their performance at Unison Festival 2026.
To be premiered in May 2026.

i love you to the moon & was commissioned by Edmonton’s Accord Ensemble for their performance at Unison Festival 2026 in Vancouver. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to adapt the titular poem by American poet Chen Chen, which exemplifies the kind of playful, joyous queer energy that I strive for in my own music. After a spacious, twinkling introduction, the music gives way to a faster middle section as we imagine our new life on the moon (with sassy lounge piano). As the music reaches a climax, it continues to ebb and flow over a long, sustained tonic pedal before gradually coming to a gentle close.

Click here to see the complete score.

Live recording currently unavailable. MIDI available on request.

Full Text

i love you to the moon &

not back, let’s not come back, let’s go by the speed of
queer zest & stay up
there & get ourselves a little
moon cottage (so pretty), then start a moon garden

with lots of moon veggies (so healthy), i mean
i was already moonlighting
as an online moonologist
most weekends, so this is the immensely

logical next step, are you
packing your bags yet, don’t forget your
sailor moon jean jacket, let’s wear
our sailor moon jean jackets while twirling in that lighter,

queerer moon gravity, let’s love each other
(so good) on the moon, let’s love
the moon
on the moon

Text from “Explodingly Yours” © Chen Chen, 2023.
Published by Ghost City Press. Used with permission.