A Golden Day was written for Carlos Cordero’s Happy Composer Commission Project in collaboration with Chorus Austin.  Six composers were chosen to write new choral music for professional choral ensembles in Austin, Texas, and A Golden Day is my contribution to the project.  The piece features Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem of the same title, and it paints pictures of love, loss, and fond remembrance.  I wanted to capture the idea of “bittersweetness” in my music, and Dunbar’s beautiful words made that task easy.

The piece begins in E major with several layers of voices repeating the opening line: “I found you.”  Near the end of the piece, this idea is repeated, but it is slightly different since the music is now in Eb major as if to say the protagonist of this story has been changed after their encounter.  The most important moment falls in the middle when the speaker confesses that they “loved her.”  The piece never resolves as the story ends in reflection and reverie.  

The piece was premiered in 2021 by the TCU Concert Chorale under the direction of Dr. Christopher Aspaas. The piece is now published by Gentry Publications under the Dr. André J. Thomas choral series.