And I Saw, by Timothy C. Takach - Presented by Choral Arts Ensemble of Portland

In 2022, CAE presented a full concert of music by Timothy C. Takach, including the premiere of “Circles,” which we commissioned before the pandemic. Inspired by “narrative, magical realism, speculative fiction, and making better humans through art,” Takach also performs as a singer, formerly in the all-male Cantus and currently in Nation with his wife and fellow composer, Jocelyn Hagen. We closed that concert with “And I Saw,” based on a poem by dramatist and literature professor Josephine Preston Peabody (1874-1922). In her twenties, she met the mystical author and artist Khalil Gibran, whose writings and friendship inspired her. This work begins with an oracular fanfare, followed by excited, overlapping repetitions of the title in all the vocal parts, as though the singers cannot begin to express the vision itself. At last, the vision becomes clear and triumphant—the world transformed by love. Performed March 1, 2026 https://www.portlandschoir.org