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What If
Browse CatalogNote from Composer
What If is a quintet from my musical Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings. In it, Exstasis (our heroine) tries to convince four other angels (Pieta, Aia, Fervio, and Gravitas) to follow her on her adventure to get her (and their) wings back.
Craig Hella Johnson saw the 2007 Los Angeles production of Paradise Lost, and asked me if he could arrange What If for percussion ensemble and his excellent ensemble Conspirare. I hesitantly agreed, not knowing what to expect. When he sent me the final product, I couldn’t believe my ears. The choral parts work perfectly as a quintet, and the percussion arrangement is almost note for note what my electronic track was doing. Like everything Craig does, this new arrangement just sounds so fresh and vibrant.
What If isn’t yet published in any format.
The Text
You’re hiding, (Nope,) surviving, (Yep.) You’re stubborn, too. (True.)
And you’re frightened, (I’m not,) not knowing (What?) your heart. (And you?)
I’m trying (To?) to question, (And?) the answer’s near. (Where?)
Here:
I yearn to soar, (So?) so there has to be much more (No.)
Yes, there must be another way.
It’s time to (Fly?) That’s right. (Then try explaining slow.)
We have to go (Where?) high above (The wall?) of course. (We’d fall!)
Perhaps, but then we’d know (Know?) all the things (Like what?) like wings and worlds we knew before.
(You’re not making sense, you yearn to soar, but we don’t have wings anymore.)
I know but there must be another way.
What if all this came true? Pure bliss!
What if your wings sailed free? We’d sing!
What would I do?
You’d lift the moon,
And make it spin.
I’d inspire a choir of sapphire winds
And you? (We’d sing) What song? (Just harmony.)
And we’d sing free in perfect harmony,
There must be another way.
What if this time your dreams they’d rhyme? (Sublime!)
What if your voice sailed free? (Rejoice!)
And we’d sing free in perfect harmony,
There must be another way.
David Noroña, b.1972 and Eric Whitacre, b.1970
Duration
3.5 minutes
Year of Composition
2008
Licensing
Music Catalog
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- All Seems Beautiful To Me
- Alleluia
- Alone
- Animal Crackers Vol. I
- Animal Crackers Vol. II
- as is the sea marvelous
- Child of Wonder
- Cloudburst
- Deep Field
- Enjoy the Silence
- Equus
- Five Hebrew Love Songs
- Fly to Paradise
- Ghost Train
- Glow
- Go, Lovely Rose
- Godzilla Eats Las Vegas!
- Goodnight Moon
- Her Sacred Spirit Soars
- Higher, Faster, Stronger
- Home
- hope, faith, life, love
- Hurt
- i carry your heart
- I Hide Myself
- i thank You God for most this amazing day
- i walked the boulevard
- i will wade out
- Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine
- Little Birds
- little man in a hurry
- little tree
- Lux Aurumque
- Lux Nova
- maggie and milly and molly and may
- Mermaids (from Pirates of the Caribbean 4)
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- Oculi Omnium
- Paradise Lost
- Prelude in C
- Psalm 137: By the Waters of Babylon
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- Sing Gently
- Sleep
- Sleep My Child
- Songs of Immortality
- The Boy Who Laughed at Santa Claus
- The Chelsea Carol
- The City and the Sea
- The Gift of the Magi
- the moon is hiding in her hair
- The River Cam
- The Sacred Veil
- The Seal Lullaby
- The Star-Spangled Banner
- The Stolen Child
- This Marriage
- Three Flower Songs
- Three Songs of Faith
- Very Soon
- Water Night
- What If
- When David Heard
- Winter
- With A Lily In Your Hand
- You Rise, I Fall