When I Rise Up…, written for mezzo-soprano and violin, sets the text of Georgia Douglas Johnson’s poem by the same name. Written loosely in ABA form, the opening section, marked soaring, juxtaposes fluid vocal lines with jaunty passages in the violin. In the B section, energy is shifted back and forth between the voice and violin through cadenza-like passages in the voice and disjunct rhythms and shrill timbres in the violin. The final section revisits melodic lines from the opening, before fading away into silence. 

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