I Will Build Us a Home
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About the Composer:
Duncan Tuomi (b. 1994) is a choral conductor and award-winning composer based in Los Angeles, California. He currently studies choral music in the Doctor of Musical Arts program at the University of Southern California (USC), where he also completed his Master of Music degree. In addition to his choral music degree, he studied composition with Dr. Frank Ticheli and Dr. Chris Rozé. He also holds a Bachelor of Music Degree in Vocal Music Education from St. Olaf College, where he studied under Dr. Anton Armstrong and Dr. Christopher Aspaas, among many others.
As a composer, Tuomi was the winner of the 2023 American Prize in Short Choral Works, College and University Division, as well as the 2021 American Choral Director’s Association’s Raymond W. Brock Memorial Student Composition Competition. He was also a composition fellow in Choral Arts Initiative’s summer 2022 PREMIERE|Project. Tuomi has had works premiered by Choral Arts Initiative under the direction of Brandon Elliott, the USC Thornton Chamber Singers and University Chorus under his own direction and under the direction of Stevie J. Hirner, the Long Beach Youth Chorus under the direction of Stevie J. Hirner, the University of Portland Chamber Singers under the direction of Dr. Michael Connolly, the Pacific University Chamber Singers under the direction of Dr. Scott Tuomi. He has received commissions from the Long Beach Youth Chorus and was commissioned to compose for the 10th annual Brothers, Sing On! Tenor/Bass Choir Festival in 2018.
About the Piece:
I Will Build Us a Home was written for my wife, Mandee, and premiered at our wedding ceremony on June 16, 2023. The text is an original poem of mine that serves as an addendum to my nuptial vows. Each stanza of the poem imagines a home in a different setting, from the idyllic country to the bustling city, and the spaces between and beyond. Within these stanzas are references to the types of life my wife and I have imagined with one another: our love of greenery and nature, her interest in sewing and my interest in wild honey, our zeal for experiencing live art and music. What lies at the center of our dream, however, is the knowledge that we are safe and loved with each other, and that ultimately we have already found home in one another.
Much of the musical inspiration for this work comes from Carolyn Shaw's And the Swallow, which also features prominent themes of one finding one's home and keeping one's family, as well as Samuel Barber's "The Coolin" from Reincarnations, which dwells heavily on the theme of safety in one's love for their partner. Shaw's elements present themselves in the texture and simple motions of the uniting phrase of the composition: "Shelter and warmth and love," while the influence of Barber can be heard in the undulating melodic lines that mark the individual stanzas of the poem.