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This work was generously commissioned by the California State University Dominguez Hills Chorus under the direction of Dr. Lynn Atkins for the Spring of 2025.
What is home? A place, a series of places, a person, a feeling?
Finding Home Again is an ode to all the resilient humans I know. Those who make home a state of mind wherever they go. Those who make a home inside of themselves first. This poem was originally titled Mantra as I started with the lines: Find a new home inside of myself, “I am safe here.” Hiking through the mountains of Bozeman, Montana, I was enamored by the wildflowers bursting out of cliffsides and rocks. From that natural imagery, the poem took shape.
I heard from Dr. Lynn Atkins in the summer of 2024. He saw the poem online and reached out. “This is exactly what I want my students to sing about. This is the culture we are creating in our chorus!” We scheduled an in-rehearsal Zoom call for the fall of 2024. The students shared their connections to the poem and artistic visions for the piece. Their tastes were broad, from a cappella Renaissance choral works to Jason Robert Brown and vocal jazz! This work for SATB choir, piano, and flute is my love letter to these brilliant singers.
Listen for the different characters of the poem personified in the music: the wildflower, the star, the jewel, and the ever-present and always-shifting feeling of home.
FINDING HOME AGAIN
The thing about wildflowers
is they bloom where they are.
No crag too deep
to point at a star.
Catch at that star.
Bury it for future fuel.
When life is dark and cruel,
unearth it as a jewel.
A jewel to catch the light.
A light to cast out fear.
Find a new home inside of myself.
“I am safe here.”
—Colin Cossi
This work was generously commissioned by the California State University Dominguez Hills Chorus under the direction of Dr. Lynn Atkins for the Spring of 2025.
What is home? A place, a series of places, a person, a feeling?
Finding Home Again is an ode to all the resilient humans I know. Those who make home a state of mind wherever they go. Those who make a home inside of themselves first. This poem was originally titled Mantra as I started with the lines: Find a new home inside of myself, “I am safe here.” Hiking through the mountains of Bozeman, Montana, I was enamored by the wildflowers bursting out of cliffsides and rocks. From that natural imagery, the poem took shape.
I heard from Dr. Lynn Atkins in the summer of 2024. He saw the poem online and reached out. “This is exactly what I want my students to sing about. This is the culture we are creating in our chorus!” We scheduled an in-rehearsal Zoom call for the fall of 2024. The students shared their connections to the poem and artistic visions for the piece. Their tastes were broad, from a cappella Renaissance choral works to Jason Robert Brown and vocal jazz! This work for SATB choir, piano, and flute is my love letter to these brilliant singers.
Listen for the different characters of the poem personified in the music: the wildflower, the star, the jewel, and the ever-present and always-shifting feeling of home.
FINDING HOME AGAIN
The thing about wildflowers
is they bloom where they are.
No crag too deep
to point at a star.
Catch at that star.
Bury it for future fuel.
When life is dark and cruel,
unearth it as a jewel.
A jewel to catch the light.
A light to cast out fear.
Find a new home inside of myself.
“I am safe here.”
—Colin Cossi