As we approach the in-person premiere of Astronautica: Voices of Women in Space we share selections from Astronautica composers as well as other composers from whom we’ve commissioned choral works over the years.

TODAY WE HEAR MORE FROM GUEST CURATOR AND ASTRONAUTICA COMPOSER RENÉE FAVAND-SEE.

The music of Woods came to me whole, as a gift. I simply took dictation as the lines, the harmony, the phrasing poured forth—the music moved through me, a joyful and pure experience. What a fitting conception for the setting of this poem that explores gratitude, another significant timbre in the feeling palette of grief. In new loss there is deep presence—in this moment there is only this action, there is only this feeling, there is only this thought—that guides your life from deep truth. As I emerged from the deep water of a traumatic loss some years ago, I sensed a subtle shift as gratitude began to well up in my heart. With this song, I give thanks. This movement begins and is pervaded with perfect fourths, a musical color of stillness, of equanimity. The tritone is also present, but primarily as an emphasized melodic interval functioning clearly within the major scale. The tritone’s brightness is the poignance of gratitude felt in the context of loss.

In this moment we’re in, of a global pandemic, a moment of inestimable loss and sorrow, I hope this message of joy and gratitude that awakens out of the depth of grief—a sensation of being held, even as we are falling—will be a healing message to some in this dark time.

– Renée Favand-See

Woods by Wendell Berry

I part the out thrusting branches and come in beneath

the blessed and the blessing trees. Though I am silent

there is singing around me. Though I am dark

there is vision around me. Though I am heavy

there is flight around me.