The Second Coming (2024)

for SATB choir / written for Choral Arts Initiative at PREMIERE|Project Festival 2024

“The Second Coming“ is unstable, raging, and loud. One of Yeats’ most well-known poems, the text warns of an apocalypse so terrible that even salvation from it would be a nightmare. This choral setting is a threat, full of whispers, tritones, chants, shrieks, and uncomfortable dissonance. Something monstrous looms in the background, smelling our fear and waiting to strike. Perhaps it is already here.

Text by William Butler Yeats