by Kyle Pederson
Join First Parish of Sudbury for our annual Music Sunday: A Vision Unfolding—a powerful five-movement work for choir by composer Kyle Pederson. It will be performed by the First Parish of Sudbury Choir, directed by Debra Morris-Bennett, Minister of Music. Guest musicians include Noriko Yasuda, piano; Ryland Bennett, narrator of the spoken word; Hunter Bennett, clarinet; Abe Finch, snare drum; and Joy Aldrich, soprano soloist.
A Vision Unfolding was commissioned in 2021 by seven choirs around the country to be an extended work centered broadly around themes of social justice. Composer Kyle Pederson collaborated with Shanelle Gabriel, an African American poet, spoken word artist, and singer/songwriter from NYC, to craft the content and message of the work. They determined that, at its core, the work needed to re-articulate and explore what our country has stood for in its best moments. Looking at our foundational texts and speeches, they found powerful declarations of a nation rooted in equality, freedom, justice, and inclusion.
Each of the five movements is preceded by spoken word, based on the writings of Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman, Robert Bode, Shanelle Gabriel, and Kyle Pederson. Hopefully, this work demonstrates our need to build bridges of care and connection, finding a better way of being in community. Woven throughout the spoken and sung words is the message that we stand in solidarity with those whose voices are too often dismissed, regardless of their skin color, sexual orientation, faith background, or other characteristics. That we might not dismiss, disdain, and judge those whose politics are different from ours, but that we might make the uncomfortable effort to see them as people just as worthy of respect and dignity.
The work concludes with the iconic Langston Hughes text, “I Dream a World.” Throughout this work, the choir and narrator have been casting a vision, and it is hard to state it better than Hughes: “I dream a world where none are scorned, where love will bless the earth and peace its paths adorn.” At the end of the movement, the listener will hear earlier melodies reprised as all voices are gradually layered in; and for the first time, all instruments sound together, building to a thunderous conclusion that invites us all to say, “yes…that’s a vision I want to help make real.”