Ten Thousand Beings

A couple of years ago, I had the privilege of participating in one of Ryan Luchuck’s (of Own Your Voice) performance workshops.  Ryan puts together these workshops to give his vocal students an opportunity to experience being on stage in front of an extremely supportive audience of friends and family. He’s been doing this for many years at the Rivoli in Toronto and a couple of years ago he put together an orchestral workshop at the Glenn Gould Studio where those who participated performed with extremely talented local session musicians.

I jumped at the opportunity to be a part of this. It’s difficult to put into words how much this experience meant to me.  I have always wanted to write music for an orchestra, so this really was a dream come true.  I wrote Ten Thousand Beings for this performance. It was the first time I attempted to write music for instruments beyond piano and cello.  Although the orchestra was too small the year I participated to really hear and feel the intention behind the music, it was an incredible experience that I’ll never forget.  Well, except for the parts that are a little hazy because of all the different types of cold medication I was on.  I am usually more of a naturalist, but I had the worst cold and flu I’ve ever had in my life and would not have been able to sing that night without a little help from the drugstore.

Most of the lyrics (and lyrical melody) were not written by me.  They were written by my love at the time.  I wanted so much to collaborate with him and we finally did it with this piece. He put a lot of work into this including mixing and there was a constant bouncing of ideas back and forth.  I’m grateful for his help in bringing this song to life.  I hold hope that one day we’ll collaborate again.

In this recording, the final verse is missing, but it gives the listener a chance to hear the instrumentation clearly.  I actually struggled with the decision to have a verse there or simply leave it instrumental. I’d like to record the final verse at some point, so I have both versions. I’d also like to one day hear this played by an orchestra large enough to support the intended emotion behind the music.

Shela…

[audio:https://notesinpieces.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/tenthousandbeings.mp3|titles=Ten Thousand Beings]