IOCSF Live: Dale Trumbore's How to Go On: Requiescat

Описание: Performed Nov 22, 2025 | St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, San Francisco
Conducted by Chris Filice, Artistic Director
Video by Zach Miley Productions

Text:
Requiescat
Let us go, let go with the few roots
you have left clinging to this earth,
pull free, like the clean snap of a carrot
or radish, let us go, shake off this dirt,
let go, let go of your family, their story
hasn't been told, yours is already written,
let go of the world, its sweetness and sorrow,
let go of your friends, we will cry, yes,
but we will not forget you, let go,
let go your fierce will and stubbornness,
it served you well, now let it go,
your courage will remain, let your daughters
become women, your husband lie in his bed of
pain,
your long journey is over, theirs is beginning,
let us go, become spirit and light, spring rain,
fly away from this prison of bone, let go,
wait for us, we'll talk again later,
I am here by the phone, waiting for the call,
for this long suffering to be over,
let it go, your work is done,
soon we will bring you to the river,
bring your ashes to the current, let them flow
free,
earth, fire, cinders, rain, wait for us
on the other side of the river, let us go.

—Barbara Crooker, from The White Poems, 2001

Composer's note:
Following the death of a loved one, contemporary poet Barbara
Crooker writes, "How can we go on /knowing the end of the story?"
How to Go On answers this question in eight movements that range
from questioning and doubt (“How”) to introspection
(“Relinquishment”) to ultimate acceptance of our own mortality
(“When at Last”). Threading solo voices in and out of the choral
texture, How to Go On asks how we each confront our own mortality,
and how, in the face of that knowledge, we can bring quiet grace back
into our daily lives. Ultimately, this work finds beauty, catharsis, and
solace in the words of three living poets: Crooker, Amy Fleury, and
Laura Foley.
How to Go On was commissioned from composer Dale Trumbore
by Choral Arts Initiative (Brandon Elliott, director); premiered on July
16, 2017 in Anaheim, CA; and released on an album of the same
name in March 2017. This piece for SSAATTBB chorus and soloists is
approximately 35 minutes long.
-Dale Trumbore, 2017