Prairie Bound (2016)
for SATB (divisi) choir, a cappella
Text: E. Pauline Johnson (1861-1913)
Duration: 5 minutes
Difficulty: 4/4
First performed by Pro Coro Canada (Michael Zaugg, dir) in June 2017.
Written just before the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, Prairie Bound stands as my own work of Canadiana. This piece is based on a short poem by the nineteenth-century poet Pauline Johnson, which describes the promise of the Canadian landscape, and the power of the Canadian Pacific Railway. In my setting, Johnson's text cuts through with incredibly dense and lush chords, while the train is personified though a constant syllabic motor, driving the music forward with insistent repetition. The tension reaches its pinnacle in the final moments, where the music explodes into an ecstatic declaration: "I am prairie bound!"
Click here to see the complete score.
The audio below is from the first performance by Pro Coro Canada (Michael Zaugg, dir.) in June 2017.
Full Text
I swing to the sunset land;
The world of prairie, the world of plain,
The world of promise and hope and gain,
The world of gold, and the world of grain,
And the world of the willing hand.
I carry the brave and bold;
The one who works for the nation's bread,
The one whose past is a thing that's dead,
The one who battles and beats ahead,
And the one who goes for gold.
I swing to the "Land to Be,"
I am the power that laid its floors,
I am the guide to its western stores,
I am the key to its golden doors,
That open alone to me.