glow

for unaccompanied SATB choir
ca. 20’00”

"...a sense of limpidness in the suddenly tangible gravity of small body on this middle-sized planet."

- A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit

"A momentary trance of emotional clarity… You look around with a new sense of gratitude , taking in the complexity of things: raindrops skittering down a window, tall trees leaning in the wind... Everything falls quiet, and the words start to lose their meaning. It all seems to mix together... And you remember that you too are a guest on this Earth. Your life is not just a quest, or an opportunity, or a story to tell; it’s also just an experience, to be lived for its own sake. It doesn’t have to mean anything other than what it is. A single moment can still stand on its own, as a morsel of existence."

- "Ambedo", The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

glow (2025) is a celebration of these beautiful moments of sudden lucidity and introspection—a sonic snapshot of three simple and serene moments gorgeously captured by E. E. Cummings that, as it unfolds, blurs the lines between nature and humanity.

glow was commissioned by and dedicated with admiration and affection to NOĒMA and its founder and Artistic Director Sanders Lau.

Text by E. E. Cummings:

leaflight: adapted from “this is the garden:colors come and go” and “utterly and amazingly i am pash”

strong silent greens serenely lingering
slow deep trees perpetual of sleep
embrace the rash coherent light

which falls
softens
flutters

lights like baths of golden snow

candy sky: “the sky was”

the
sky
was
can dy lu
minous
edible
spry
pinks shy
lemons
greens coo l choc
olate
s.

un der,
a lo
co
mo
tive s pout
ing
vi
o
lets

sunshower: “i have found what you are like”

i have found what you are like
the rain.

(Who feathers frightened fields
with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields

easily the pale club of the wind
and swirled justly souls of flower strike

the air in utterable coolness

deeds of green thrilling light
with thinned

newfragile yellows

lurch and.press

—in the woods
which
stutter
and

sing
And the coolness of your smile is
stirringofbirds between my arms;but
i should rather than anything
have(almost when hugeness will shut
quietly)almost,
your kiss

Performances:

12 Apr 2025 (world premiere)
NOĒMA: Ce Qui Pèse Et Nourrit
Methodist International Church, Wan Chai, Hong Kong
NOĒMA; Sanders Lau, artistic director