I Will Lift Mine Eyes was commissioned by a church choir from a small town called Big Spring, TX. This is my very first commission, and it was written specifically for Jobeth Corwin, a woman from that church community, to celebrate her 80th birthday. For the text, they asked me to set her favorite psalm: Psalm 121. There are many settings of this psalm out there, and I was reluctant to write my own. I wanted to set mine apart in some small way. After talking to Jobeth Corwin’s family and learning more about her life, they told me she was a lifelong chorister who sang the alto part in any choir she was a member of, so to start the piece, I began with a solo intended for an alto voice. 

The main theme paints the image of lifting one’s eyes unto the hills as the melody ascends the scale. This theme appears throughout the entire piece. The composition is written without divisi to be accessible to the high school and church choir.