I Shall Raise My Lantern

The story of I Shall Raise My Lantern begins decades ago, when I was 15 and still held youthful aspirations of being a professional vocalist. As a participant in the Oregon Bach Festival Youth Choral Academy, I met a kid named Brian Stone, who would go on to be a college buddy, my roommate in grad school school, and one of my very dearest friends. In the intervening years, I encountered the work of poet and artist Kahlil Gibran, who has been an enduring “guiding star” for me in not just his artistry, but his philosophy. It just so happened that these two stories aligned in 2024: at the exact time I’d decided to tackle setting some texts from Gibran’s iconic The Prophet, my old friend Brian called me to discuss a new piece for his choir, Cantabile, along with the Boulder Bassoon Quartet.

The Prophet is a short story that details the titular character’s last words to the people of his adoptive home village, just as he is preparing to leave forever. At his community’s urging, the prophet imparts wisdom about children, money, love, fear, death, and other facets of existence. As beautiful and impactful as that writing is, though, I was always more fascinated by the prophet’s words to himself: the moments in which he expresses doubt and longing, ultimately giving way to faith. Perhaps because of my own fears about my life and work, I find it comforting that a character who is a beacon of knowledge and hope for everyone around him can still cast such shadows upon himself. This text is what became the ultimate text of I Shall Raise My Lantern: the prophet’s secret meditations before he announces his departure, and the thoughts that are his most vulnerable, yet kept completely to himself.

I Shall Raise My Lantern does not attempt to tell the “story” of Gibran’s text or its narrator. Rather, it explores what I think of as the emotional journey of transition. To move from the known to the unknown, to leave a community you love for solitude, to broadcast strength when you are afraid… these are deeply human experiences that invite a panoply of feelings. I Shall Raise My Lantern is at turns vulnerable, resentful, and determined, with the bassoon quartet and the choir in constant musical dialogue with one another. The piece ends with a gesture I do not intend as somber, but questioning: we have not quelled our fears, but we are nevertheless ready to step forward.

I Shall Raise My Lantern is dedicated to Brian Stone.