Rivers I Have Walked - piano score
PDF score for piano
This piece was commissioned by Maria Thompson Corley for the album Soulscapes 2: Piano Music by Women of African Descent.
1. Susquehanna
While considering a move from New York to Pennsylvania in 2013, the composer envisioned following the course of a waterway she saw on a map: the Susquehanna River. Her performances at the time featured improvisations on J.S. Bach’s Prelude in C major from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, which is alluded to in the second section of the movement. She first walked along the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg, PA, on a bright spring afternoon in 2014; the opening section of this movement evokes the gentle, shimmering waves she saw. The land along the Susquehanna River is the ancestral home of the Conestoga-Susquehannock people and their past, present, and future descendants.
2. East
When the composer lived in Brooklyn, NY from 2011 to 2013, she crossed the East River on foot, on a ferry, and on subway trains aboveground and belowground. This movement’s constant 7/4 meter progresses from jarring through mystifying and breathtaking to encompassing, reflecting the composer’s process of acclimating to life in New York City. The East River lies within the ancestral home of the Munsee-speaking Lenape (Delaware) people and their past, present, and future descendants.
3. James
For several months in 2020, the composer hiked along the James River in Richmond, VA, every week. The movement portrays the river’s grandeur and vigor that gave her solace and strength during the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The James River lies within the ancestral home of a group of Algonquin-speaking tribes organized under Wahunsenacawh, chief of the Powhatan, and their past, present, and future descendants.