Blomster - Albin Fiskesjö

Blomster is a piece in three movements with each movement being named after one of my mothers’ and my fathers’ favourite flowers. Still experimenting with finding my “sound.” I was inspired to use a kind of shifting modal tonality to reflect the different flowers. When composing the piece I wanted it to be monothematic so I could show how flowers change, they sprout, grow, bloom, wither and die, and then they do it all again. 

One of my mother’s favourites, a flower she uses the core of to decorate her pottery.

II. Passionsblomma 

One of my father’s favourites, a flower which just bore fruit in their greenhouse this summer.

III. Fläderblom 

One of my favourites, a flower we use in our tradition of making elderflower juice each summer. 

(note by the composer)

Dub-Stravinsky - Texu Kim

Sonata for Bassoon and Piano - Margaret Brouwer

Commissioned by Sue Barber with generous support from James Madison University College of Visual and Performing Arts 

The Sonata for Bassoon and Piano is a study in contrasts, featuring the clear, pristine, sometimes crisp, sometimes liquid, sometimes haunting sound of the bassoon. In the Andante, the piano creates blurred, murmuring clouds of sound while the bassoon floats and sings sometimes peacefully, sometimes hauntingly above and through them. In the Allegro, the bassoon’s mastery of short, crisp notes, leaping around the spectrum of high and low registers is on display. The bassoon and piano speedily chase each other through the music, often in a lively repartee. In a middle section, the bassoon wends way above, below and through the mass of somewhat menacing clouds of sound created by the piano. 

In the Theatre of Air - Judith Shatin

In the Theatre of Air, scored for flute ensemble, was inspired by a line from Mary Oliver’s mystical poem “Starlings in Winter.” The murmurations, created as starlings fly in formation, shape-shift as they go, creating fantastic patterns in the air. Just so, music, in its myriad formations, flies to us through the air. The music’s structure plays with that notion in multiple ways: starting from a point of pulsed stillness, with elements of air, sung and played pitches swing into actions that change, rising and falling, denser and sparser, never coming back to the same spot before finally drifting off into the air. In the Theatre of Air was a consortium commission by three groups. Flutist Kelly Sulick, Director of the University of Virginia Flute Ensemble, led the project. She was joined by Beth Chandler Cahill, Director of the James Madison University Flute Ensemble, and Lindsay Leach Sparks, Director of the Eno Flute Ensemble.

(note by the composer) 

From Paul John Rudoi, the creator of We Sing On:

Cantus has visited JMU several times while on tour, and given our Minnesota connection, I have also known Colin [Cossi] for many years, respecting and admiring his passion and expertise in so many areas. Given all this, I was honored and excited to be invited by JMU to compose a work based on inspiration from the data set from Colin's thesis. A specific story emerged from these responses wherein some students' families are not supportive or understanding of their choice to study music. Two in particular stood out, one in response to Question 1 [in Colin's thesis study]:

... always asking 'How much money can you get out of that career?' 'Are you sure this is what you want to do with your life? Pick something functional and worth seeking a degree for.' 'Music is a hobby, not a career.'"

And the other, in response to Question 4 [in Colin's thesis study]:

'abandonment, on my own, my choice, I cannot do something for the rest of my life that I do not love, money means nothing when happiness means everything."

These two responses led me down a path of nostalgia from a time when I asked myself these questions, unsure of whether it was worth it. Ultimately, it was worth it for me just as it is for many others. It is only after considering why we musicians do what we do, no matter the cost, do we realize that we have the freedom to find ourselves in the music we create, share, and are.

We Sing On

You say this road would never lead to rest,
that songs grow thin when life comes due each month.
You ask us why we choose the harder way and speak of talent better kept aside.

You've cried and warned and quietly withdrawn.
But music came before we learned to doubt, a sound we carried long before the choice,
a drive that drove despite the rising cost.

We sing on. We sing on. With what we have, we sing on.
Through the noise, through the dark, with what we have, we sing on.

"What we have" is more than what it seems.
No praise, no proof, no answers neatly formed.
It is the breath we lend to someone else, the room made safe by listening and time.

It is the work that asks us to remain when silence would be simpler to accept. We learn at last what carried us this far—not stubbornness, but love that would not leave.

We sing on. We sing on. With what we have, we sing on.
Through the noise, through the dark, with what we have, we sing on.

From Colin Cossi, the creator of String Theory:

In the spring of 2025, JMU Choir students took anonymous surveys to answer the question: "What stories would you like to tell on stage when you are singing in choir next year?" Their responses drove me to two new choral works. String Theory was born of different responses that all shared a common theme: 'We are each other's entire worlds.' That theme kept me up late one night in the fall of 2025. In the "lonely night," I wrote the String Theory poem that quickly revealed itself to be the right text for this piece. In recent years, scientists have explored quantum mechanics and string theory, revealing the invisible connections between all people, all things, across space and time. This piece is meant to honor that connection, visualizing our quantum entanglement of strings of light that connect each of us to one another, to our earth, to our galaxy, and across the space-time continuum. As our singers and audience members move through their daily lives, may the soundscape of this work be a reminder that no matter the stresses and trials, we are always interconnected. Our stories, failures, and successes are all interwoven. 'We are each other's everything. If we only choose to see it.'

String Theory

In the lonely night, drenched in star shadow,
visions appear—memories of every friend and lover,
family members here and gone, strangers passing by, across earthly space and unraveled time.

Sacred memory carved with crystal vision. I tie a string between then and now.
Each string is made of light, a shimmering tether to every version of us.

In the waking hours, the strings begin to tug at pieces of before—
Lingering lakeside by a crackling fire, just sixteen. Laughing away regret on a long walk home.
Lying my weeping head in your lap, no end on the horizon.

The crisscrossing strings seem to sing: We are each other's everthing!
The whole world held together by undeniable light. If only we choose to see it.

Texu Kim's choral composition Phos Hilaron is a 4-minute setting for SATB choir and bells that reimagines the ancient 3rd-century Christian lamp-lighting evening hymn. St. Francis in the Fields Episcopal Church commissioned it, and the Evensong Choir premiered it in 2020. The "Phos Hilaron" (Greek for "Gladsome Light" or "Joyous Light") hymn is traditionally sung at sunset during evening prayer or vespers across Christian traditions. The text offers praise to the Holy Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—as day fades and evening lights are kindled, addressing Jesus Christ as the "giver of life" and pure brightness of the immortal Father. In Kim's contemporary choral arrangement, the treatment of this 3rd-century evening hymn uses contemporary harmonic palettes to aurally depict the transition from daylight to twilight, incorporating handbells/bells to evoke the shimmering, tranquil shift into evening. A beautiful sympathetic resonance occurs as the choir "blends into" the ring of bells, augmenting the natural acoustics and upper partials generated by the bell strikes. This natural "halo effect" embodies the concept of Phos Hilaron—the "Gladsome Light."

Phos Hilaron ("Gracious Light")

O gracious Light, pure brightness of the ever-living Father in heaven,
O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed!
Now as we come to the setting of the sun, and our eyes behold the vesper light,
we sing your praises, O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
You are worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,
O Son of God, O Giver of life, and to be glorified through all the worlds.