Program note:

This piece is a setting of the poem A Place Fear Can’t Find by Jaylen Stark. The poem focuses on themes of new and unfamiliar environments, hope, and looking towards a brighter future, using street signs and road work as a metaphor for growth, learning, and social progress.

The piece is in ABAB form. It begins with the phrase “I see” and uses bright chords to convey a sense of newness and unfamiliarity. The mood then shifts, using sudden modulation and open textures to convey an anxious feeling. Over the course of the piece, the phrase “checkered lines” is repeated as an accompaniment texture that changes from being threatening – a sign of unfamiliar surroundings and social closed mindedness – to being hopeful. Throughout the piece the phrases “I see” and “I hear” are used as divisions between sections and are signs of progress and slowly becoming used to a new environment. 

In the final section of the piece, the basses and sopranos sing a dreamy, winding melody that swings between 7ths, 9ths, and octaves. The ultimate resolution of this melody is indicative of a hope for humankinds ability to set aside our differences and live in harmony. The final phrase “a place checkered lines stop” emerges from the “checkered texture” as a united cry for a better tomorrow, one in which all people can be free from oppression and unafraid to live their lives to the fullest.