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You've cried and warned and quietly withdrawn.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 ("Joyous 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.