Constellation Men's Ensemble | Where My Heart Can Sing - Daniel Gawthrop
Premiered as part of NOVA IV: house & home, June 2021.
I am seeking Lord for a place of rest
I’m a wanderer, a pilgrim, a stranger.
Lead me Lord to a blessed place,
That place where my heart can sing.
I sought peace in the ancient forest
Lace canopies of green spread o’er my head
But in solitude I found there was no respite as midnight phantoms forced entry to my dreams.
Beleaguered, I sought succor on the mountain, from the peak the pathway surely would be clear.
But no vision, no fire, no voice of thunder spoke to the hunger deep within my heart.
In that lonely place of fear and darkness the wilderness stretches endless before me.
How long, O Lord, shall I wander lost, unseen, unloved, unloved?
Into my loneliness amid the chaos came the hand and the voice of a stranger
“Safe haven, safe haven here, safe haven, with fellow pilgrims rest.
Here is peace, here is welcome, here is love, here is love.”
I am seeking Lord for a place of rest
Where all may come and find a safehold.
Let me be your guide to that blessed place, to that place where every heart can sing.
Daniel E. Gawthrop has been the recipient of over one hundred commissions to write original music. His published choral and organ works are in the catalogs of Dunstan House, Alfred Publishing, Alliance Music, Lorenz Publishing Co., and others. His a cappella motet "Sing Me to Heaven" is among the most frequently performed choral pieces of modern times and has sold more than a half million copies.
Gawthrop's music has premiered in the Concert Hall of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Salt Lake City Mormon Tabernacle, and Washington National Cathedral among dozens of other prestigious venues. His choral pieces have been performed and recorded by such eminent ensembles as The United States Air Force Singing Sergeants, the Gregg Smith Singers, the Turtle Creek Chorale, the Paul Hill Chorale, the American Boychoir, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Cathedral Choral Society (of Washington National Cathedral) and literally hundreds of other groups in the U.S. and abroad.
https://dunstanhouse.subitomusic.com/
In addition to his work as a composer, Gawthrop has been active as a broadcaster, clinician and adjudicator, organist, conductor, teacher and writer, including a period as music critic for The Washington Post.
