Event Details

Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 7:30pm

Catherine Cassidy Gallagher Great Hall, GBPAC

UNI Wind Ensemble
UNI Concert Chorale

Danny Galyen & John Wiles, conductors
Garrett Arensdorf & Alan Beving, graduate conductors

featuring
MaKayla McDonald, soprano
Jeremiah Sanders, baritone
Andrea Johnson, piano

Garrett Arensdorf, graduate conductor

Arr. James David

1. Light After Darkness – “Post tenebras lux…”
2. Herman, the Recluse – “Hermann Inclusus”
3. The Great Red Dragon – “Draco Magnus Rufus”
4. The Holy City - “Sanctam Civitatem” 

INTERMISSION

Alan Beving, graduate conductor
Members of the UNI Wind Ensemble

1. I Believe in God
2. Especially Do I Believe in the Negro Race
3. I Believe in Pride of Race
4. I Believe in the Devil and His Angels
5. I Believe in the Prince of Peace
6. I Believe in Liberty
7. I Believe in Patience

MaKalya McDonald, soprano
Jeremiah Sanders, baritone
Andrea Johnson, piano

arr. Craig Hella Johnson

Personnel

Wind Ensemble

FLUTE
Hannah La Croix
Timarie LaFoy
Jennifer Valenzuela*
Bethany Winget

OBOE
Ella Adolphs*
Rhys Little

CLARINET
Daniel Bennett
Emma Bennett
McKinley Boyd
Annika Dagel
Lindsay Davison
Angelina DeSocio
Emma Schmidt-Denner*
Elizabeth Stanish
Abby Voshell*

BASSOON
Adam McDonald*
Marco Olachnovitch
Kate VanGorp

SAXOPHONES
Abby Gaul*
Riley Kruse
Charlotte Ottemoeller
Landon Then
Kate Wilken

HORN
Isabel Ceynar
JD Deninger
Maddie Klein
Patrick Mooney*

TRUMPET
Alyssa Dougherty
Jetta Colsch
Lucas Garretson-Oneil
Abigail Holschlag
Dora Roorda*
Eric Torneten

TROMBONE
Kristen Engelhardt
Aaron Piper
Morgan Uitermarkt*
Nicolas Sawyer

EUPHONIUM
Morgan Westphal

TUBA
Aidan Anderson
Garrett Arensdorf*

PERCUSSION
Zachary Kendrick
Kyle Langston
Megan Hobbs
Sean Middleton
Jesse Sheehan
Olivia Crum
Chloe Berns-Schweingruber

PIANO
Chloe Berns-Schweingruber

BASS
McCaffrey Brandt

HARP
Mara Caylor

ANTIPHONAL PERCUSSION
Brayden DeVries
Reece Hoffman

* denotes section leader

Concert Chorale

SOPRANO
Sophia Adkins, Sophomore, Theater for Youth and Communities ; Shenandoah, IA
Aleigha Ausman, Junior, Elementary and Middle Level Education; Pella, IA
Sydney Barton, Graduate, Masters in Athletic Training & Rehabilitation Studies; Tipton, IA
Lana Cook, Sophomore, Choral Music Education; West Des Moines, IA
Grace Dinneen, Junior, Psychology; Sioux Falls, SD
Lilly Kallenberger, Senior, Choral Music Education; Muscatine, IA
Emma Malmberg, Junior, Choral music Ed; Grimes, IA
Shannon Marley, Junior, Early Childhood Education; Glenwood, IA
Alison Meagher, Senior, Poli Sci/Spanish; West Des Moines, IA
Hannah Noethe, Freshman, Vocal Music Education; Emmetsburg, IA
Tegan Owens, Senior, Choral Music Ed; Cherokee, IA
Abby Perry, Sophomore, Music Ed; Albia, IA
Adelyn Sittig, Junior, Communication Sciences and Disorder; North Liberty, IA
Victoria Smith, Sophomore, Choral Music Education; Mt. Pleasant, IA, IA
Lara Steinblums, Junior, Communication Sciences and Disorders; Pleasant Hill, IA
Aurelia Zylstra, Freshman, Music Composition; Pella, IA

ALTO
Nora Ausman, Freshman, Biology ; Pella, IA
Ruthellen Brooks, Senior, Choral Music Education; Muscatine, IA
Arianna Davila , Freshman, Social Work; Muscatine, IA
Mattie Jo Dooley, Junior, Communication Sciences and Disorders; Emmetsburg, IA
Erin Epperson, Junior, Choral music education ; Fairfield , IA
Piper Even, Junior, Music Education ; Marion, IA
Lily Ford, Junior, Music History and Music Ed (choral); Marion, IA
Lucy Galloway, Freshman, Communications; Waterloo, IA
Lucy Galloway, Freshman, Communications; Waterloo, IA
Billy Jensen, Freshman, Music Education Vocal; Westgate , IA
Darby Lake, Senior, Choral Music Education; Muscatine, IA
Laci McHenry, Junior, Choral Music Education; Cedar Rapids, IA
Elliana Nelson, Junior, Choral Music Education; Lewiston, MN
Megan Pierschbacher, Sophomore, Economics ; Greeley, IA
Ayanna Reckman, Senior, Elementary Education; Clinton, IA
Ayanna Reckman, Senior, Elementary Education ; Clinton , IA
Essie Riker, Junior, Choral Music Education; Cumberland, IA
Akela Salter, Senior, Music Education; Boone, IA
Jenna Schmith, Junior, Music Education (Choral/General); Oelwein, IA
Sydney Seebecker, Sophomore, Elementary Education ; Algona, IA
Janna Youngquist, Sophomore, Art Education ; Ankeny, IA

TENOR
Alan Beving, Graduate, Chorale Conducting; Hartley, IA
Aaron Copic, Senior, Music Education Choral/General; Fort Madison, IA
Bensen Foster, Freshman, Music Education; Pella, IA
Bryson Grove, Senior, Choral Music Education; South English, IA
Reign Krumwiede, Freshman, History; Clear Lake, IA
Zach Midtling, Sophomore, Choral Music Education ; Fort Dodge, IA
Juan Morales, Senior, Music ; Denison, IA
Matthew Richardson, Junior, Choral music Ed; Muscatine, IA
Caleb Swinney, Sophomore, Communication: Theater Teaching; Bettendorf, IA
Lex Taylor, Sophomore, Choral Music Education; Muscatine, IA
Michael Wagner, Sophomore, Choral music education; Fort Dodge, IA

BASS
Spencer Anderson, Senior, General Music; Minneapolis, MN
Kaleb Carda, Junior, Choral Music Education; Sioux City, Iowa, IA
Kaden Carda, Freshman, Choral Music Education; Sioux City, IA
Zackary Evans, Freshman, Math and Math ed; Humboldt, IA
Noah Hartman, Junior, Choral Music Ed; Johnston, IA
Mason Hatch, Junior, Digital Media Journalism; Knoxville, IA
Levi Hodge, Sophomore, Social Science Teaching ; Cedar rapids, IA
Aidan Leahy, Sophomore, Choral Music Ed; Davenport, Iowa
Nicholas Perry, Junior, Business Admin. Management; Albia, IA
Eayon Phipps, Freshman, Business Administration and Real Estate ; Nevada, IA
Finnigan Riley, Sophomore, Choral Music Education; Alburnett, IA
Brock Trenkamp, Senior, Physical Education; Delhi, IA
Jon Turner, Senior, Choral Music Education; Independence , IA
Opal Utsler, Junior, Choral Music Education; Indianola, IA
Nate VanDyk, Freshman, Music Composition; Ames, IA
Gabe Wagner, Junior, Choral Ed; Ankeny, IA

About the Artists

Soprano, MaKayla McDonald (she/her), is an active performer of new works, ensemble pieces, and opera. This season, she’ll join Tero Saarinen Company and Boston Camerata on international stages for Borrowed Light, a work that captures the ritualistic essence of dance and the profound strength of community. Later this season, MaKayla will collaborate with City Lyric Opera for Jeremy Beck’s, Black Water, a monodrama with dance. Additional season highlights include a concert of music by North American Indigenous composers with Voices of the New Ensemble, and a continued residency with American Opera Project.

Recent engagements include the Lift Ev’ry Voice artist residency with Cedar Rapids Opera, a residency designed to uplift community youth through music; continued faculty recitals at the Borough of Manhattan Community College; the premiere of Fizz & Ginger, a jazz opera, by Whitney George and Bea Goodwin; Mozart’s Requiem with Musica Sacra and the New York Philharmonic at David Geffen Hall; keynote speaker for the Cedar Valley Arts Summit.

As a lyric soprano, MaKayla has found success as an Encouragement Award Winner in the prestigious Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition and as a Semi-Finalist in the Orpheus Vocal Competition. MaKayla was in the 2020-2021 Opera in the 21st Century cohort with Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity; a performance-based, collaborative training experience for emerging opera professionals that challenges the conventions of opera performance, production, and design.

A native Iowan, MaKayla received both her Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Vocal Performance, from the University of Northern Iowa. Currently, she studies with Michael Chioldi.

MaKayla currently resides in Brooklyn, NY and is an Adjunct Lecturer for the Borough of Manhattan Community College Music and Art Department (BMCC-CUNY).  Offstage, you can usually find MaKayla at trivia night confidently answering all the pop culture questions, reading a book, or enjoying the foods of New York City.

Jeremiah Sanders (they/them/he/him) started singing in church choir with their madea (great grandmother) in Marion, IN. ​Now an operatic baritone, Sanders has found success as a District Winner in the prestigious Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominque Laffont Competition, 1st place winner in the Opera Ebony Competition, 1st place with the Friends of the Symphony (Lima Symphony Orchestra) Young Artist Competition, 2nd place with the Indianapolis Matinee Musicale Collegiate Scholarship Competition, as a finalist in the Opera Mississippi John Alexander Vocal Competition, as a finalist and Raphael Bundage Young Artist Award recipient in the Orpheus National Vocal Competition, and an Encouragement Award recipient from the Metropolitan Opera National Council. 

A budding Verdi Baritone, Sanders's training has centered on an Italianate, Bel canto style. Their/his repertoire includes 25 roles across the canon. Notable previous roles include: Falstaff and Ford in Falstaff, Father in Hänsel und Gretel, and Gianni Schicchi in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi. Jeremiah has a substantial interest in 20th and 21st century music, living composers, and composers of marginalized identities. They/he regularly participate in workshops and premieres for new operas and songs. 

Sanders recently sang the role of Bob in the historic IU Jacobs School of Music production of Highway 1, USA. They/he were the Four Villains in Union Avenue Opera's award-winning production of Les Contes d'Hoffmann. 

A native Hoosier,  Sanders received their Performer's Diploma in Voice from Indiana University, Master's degree in Vocal Performance from Butler University, and Bachelor of Arts degree at Manchester University. Currently, they/he studies with Jane Dutton.

About the Program

Program Notes for Wind Ensemble

In This Broad Earth

COME, said the Muse,
Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted,
Sing me the Universal.

In this broad Earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
Nestles the seed Perfection.

– from Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Universal” from Leaves of Grass

In This Broad Earth is a short fanfare written for and dedicated to Kevin Sedatole and the Michigan State University Wind Symphony. Inspired by beauty I witness when hiking in the Austrian Alps with my wife, Verena, the music celebrates the earth, our only home (for now).

- Program Note by composer

Mannin Veen: Dear Isle of Man (A Manx Tone Poem)

Mannin Veen is a classic of the post-Holst, pre-Hindemith era of band works; it draws on the composer’s experiences of Manx culture, when his family lived on the Isle of Man, an autonomous island “Crown Dependency” situated between Ireland and the English mainland in the Irish Sea.

This work, based on Manx folksongs, is founded on four of those tunes. The first, The Good Old Way, is an old and typical air written mostly in the Dorian mode. The second, which introduces the lively section of the work, is a reel – The Manx Fiddler. The third tune, Sweet Water in the Common, relates to the practice of summoning a jury to decide questions concerning water rights, boundaries, etc. The fourth and last is a fine old hymn, The Harvest of the Sea, sung by the fishermen as a song of thanksgiving after their safe return from the fishing grounds.

- Program Note by composer

Symphony No. 1 Codex Gigas

The second decade of the 21st century has brought forth some of humanity's greatest achievements in technology and science, but has paradoxically seen a disturbing rise in misinformation and paranoia.  My first symphony attempts to deal with my own frustrations and fears about our current times through the lens of a variety of masterworks from the past.  

The symphony draws inspiration from the 13th century medieval text also titled Codex Gigas which was completed in a Bohemian monastery in the modern-day Czech Republic.  Most significantly, this monastery was destroyed during the Hussite Revolution of the 15th century which led to a long history of the work being moved and reacquired many times since its initial creation.  Of particular note to my work are the large illustrations included in the text, which will serve as the basis of two of the movements. Most famously are  full-page illustrations of the devil and the City of Heaven (shown above). Compositional techniques from the time period, including isorhythm and organum harmonizations, will be utilized throughout.

The Codex Gigas also has a fascinating tangential connection to contemporary wind band music through Czech-American composer Karel Husa.  Music for Prague 1968, as is well-known, was based in part on medieval chant from Bohemia during the Hussite Revolution which ties it directly to the history of the Codex Gigas. The final movement will quote the chant "Ye Who Are Warriors of Our God" as part of its depiction of the City of Heaven.  Husa's own frustrations and fears were expressed in his 1970 work Apotheosis of this Earth and my symphony will hopefully recall some of this energy and intensity as well. Ultimately, the symphony should be seen as a celebration of knowledge, reason, and intellect as we struggle to overcome our baser instincts and prejudices. 

I. Light After Darkness – “post tenebras lux…”

The first movement is built on the idea of the church as the defender of "the light of knowledge" during the long darkness of the medieval era. Bells sounding out from the gloom will become an important motive in the rest of the symphony. The form of the movement will be built on the geometric and mathematical proportions associated with medieval sacred architecture.

II. Herman, the Recluse – “Hermann Inclusus”

The second movement deals with the fascinating figure surrounding the Codex Gigas, Herman the Recluse, who is referenced as the most likely primary author.  Although the exact origins of the book may never be known, most scholars point to a single scribe who labored without ceasing for nearly thirty years to create the gigantic work.  This adagio movement will depict the character of the scribe through medieval contrapuntal techniques as well as postmodern reinterpretations of such techniques by Ligeti and Pärt.

III. The Great Red Dragon – “Draco Magnus Rufus”

The Codex Gigas has often been called "The Devil's Bible" for the huge illustration of the "devil" found on plate 290r in the work.  In the symphony, the devil will be shown as a brutal and intense "infernal dance" with references to the many earlier 20th-century works inspired by folk traditions throughout Europe (including Janáček, Stravinsky, Bartók, Lutoslawski, and others). The title references a passage from the book of Revelation. This movement depicts the violence and anger that is caused by fear and ignorance, a problem that is sadly still common in the present.

IV. The Holy City - “Sanctam Civitatem”

The final movement  depicts the "City of Heaven," which is another full-page illustration that faces the more well-known "devil."  Here, the Hussite Hymn will be stated in a massive finale that also incorporates harmonies and timbres from Messiaen's Colors of the Celestial City.  Melodic motives from the prior movements will be combined into a complex contrapuntal tapestry.  

- Program Note by composer

Program Notes for Concert Chorale

Every day, my young children stand with their peers and recite our nation’s most aspirational promise: that we are “indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Our desire for indivisibility is so strong that we have even placed it into public policy, reminding educators to avoid ideas that divide rather than unite. Indivisibility, then, has become not only a personal hope but a civic mandate.

But what is indivisibility? Must it only be idealistic hegemony? Or can it also be a commitment to mutual integrity within a shared purpose? Most critically for our purposes, can singing in a choir help us to answer these questions?

Art, of course, is almost never entirely neutral. Art gathers community, which means it sometimes reveals differences our society must navigate. Indeed, many artists would argue that this tension is a virtue. Art names the fractures of its time and place; it risks discomfort so that communities might confront truth, not to wound but to heal.

Concert Chorale’s portion of this concert was designed to explore learning through art in the deepest civic sense. Put simply, how can the rehearsal and performance of music kindle our capacity for shared purpose? We used the anthropological framework of pilgrimage as our structural arc for engaging this repertoire, devoting nearly thirty percent of our preparation period to reflective, embodied, and interdisciplinary modes of learning that invited dialogue across disciplines and experiences and deepened the artistic process.

We began by separating from habit, leaving behind musicality as solely execution. We sought a liminal place, rehearsing texts that ask difficult questions about death, faith, human worth, and hope. And now we hope to return, not only to the stage, but to our own communities with a renewed sense of indivisibility, deepened by perspective, agency, and a process we can carry forward

The process itself has been as important to the curriculum as the notes and rhythms. How do we listen across differences? How do we wrestle with meaning? How do we speak clearly with respect to each other while still seeking wholeness? How can we build ethical relationships within the plurality that defines our nation and our chorus, recognizing that every singer’s engagement with this music is unique, shaped by their own story?

The goal was not persuasion for its own sake, but music-making that also cultivates empathy and historical awareness. The texts we sing this evening remain profoundly relevant to our own moment in history -- we sing of death, of anxiety for future generations, of justice, and of hope. Yet rather than amplifying division, the act of music-making reminds us of what indivisibility looks like in practice through attention, courage, patience, and the shared creation of beauty.

As the audience, you are part of this experience. You’re invited to reflect with us. During each piece of music, consider asking yourself: (1) What does this music reveal about our shared human experience? (2) How might my act of listening shape the way we live together with integrity and shared purpose?

-John Wiles

Bregräbnisgesang, op. 13
Composer: Johannes Brahms
Text: Michael Weiße

Composed when Brahms was only twenty-five, Begräbnisgesang (“Funeral Song”) sets a 16th-century Lutheran burial text for choir and wind ensemble. The work anticipates the spiritual and musical depth of his later German Requiem, blending solemn chorale style with Romantic warmth. Rather than mourning, the piece expresses confidence in resurrection. 

Now let us bury the body,
Which without a doubt
On resurrection day
Will rise in splendour.

For out of earth he was made
And to the earth he will return
And from it he will rise
When the Lord sounds the trumpet.

His soul will live forever in God,
Who in his mercy
Has swept it clear of
All sin and evil.

His work, sorrow, and misery
Has come to a good end.
He helped carry the Lord's burden,
Has died and yet is still alive.

The soul lives without sorrow,
The body sleeps until resurrection-day
When God transfigures him,
And gives him eternal bliss.

Here he was weighed down by fear,
There he will be at ease again,
In eternal peace and happiness
Radiant like the brilliant sun.

Now we leave him here at rest
And all go our separate ways,
Do our duties with eagerness
Until death comes to us without exception.

A Shadow
Composer: Ēriks Ešenvalds
Text: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds sets Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s quiet meditation on mortality and legacy. In this sonnet, the poet contemplates his children and wonders what will become of them after his death, before finding comfort in the enduring rhythms of history. Ešenvalds’ choral writing mirrors that movement from anxiety to consolation. Transparent harmonies, shifting dissonances, and luminous suspensions evoke both the fragility of life and the continuity of human experience. The work closes not in despair, but in calm assurance as a whistled benediction honors the “troop of shadows moving with the sun.”

I said unto myself, if I were dead,
  What would befall these children?  What would be
  Their fate, who now are looking up to me
  For help and furtherance?  Their lives, I said,
Would be a volume wherein I have read
  But the first chapters, and no longer see
  To read the rest of their dear history,
  So full of beauty and so full of dread.
Be comforted; the world is very old,
  And generations pass, as they have passed,
  A troop of shadows moving with the sun;
Thousands of times has the old tale been told;
  The world belongs to those who come the last,
  They will find hope and strength as we have done.

Credo
Composer: Margaret Bonds
Text: W.E.B. Dubois

Precisely when Margaret Bonds first came into contact with the Credo of W. E.B. Du Bois is not currently known. Du Bois was one of the great luminaries of the early twentieth century’s Civil Rights movement in the U.S. – a brilliant, eloquent, and prolific author, founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and founding editor of the widely circulated journal The Crisis. The text of the Credo, one of the most iconic texts of the Civil Rights movement before Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, is a masterpiece of strategy of dual perspective: its verbiage of racial harmony and scriptural imagery of children in green pastures beside still waters – language designed to convince skeptical Whites that Du Bois was committed to a racial harmony founded in the Judeo-Christian institutions that they professed to adhere to – is nested in a fierce pride in Black lineage and self, condemnation of war, and (most importantly) the overarching thesis that racial equality and justice were things that were divinely ordained, not granted by humans.

The first complete surviving incarnation of the Credo was the piano-vocal setting presented [tonight]. That version was complete by 1965, and was premiered  by Bonds’s friend Frederick Wilkerson in  Washington D.C. on 12 March 1967. The orchestral version was begun… in January 1966. In 2003 Rollo Dilworth prepared a new edition of the orchestral version. [Concert Chorale met with Dr. Dilworth via zoom in October for a lengthy discussion on Credo.]

The Credo is a masterpiece. Even a cursory consideration will note Bonds’s virtuosity in meeting the formidable challenges of setting prose (rather than poetry) to music, the work’s wide emotional range, its alternately beautiful and powerful melodic language, and its rich harmonic palette. Even more significant from a compositional and interpretive point of view is Bonds’s brilliant translation of the underlying large-scale concept of Du Bois’ text into a large-scale musical cycle. She groups the nine separate articles of the text into two large sections. The work as a whole is a cycle in A minor, with central tonal axes of D minor and F major, and its large-scale cyclical unity is underscored by a rich network of thematic and motivic recollections. 

-John Michael Cooper

I believe in God who made of one blood all races that dwell on earth. I believe that all men, black and white, are brothers, varying through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development.

Especially do I believe in the Negro Race; in the beauty of its genius, the sweetness of its soul, and its strength in that meekness which shall yet inherit this turbulent earth.

I believe in pride of race and lineage and self; in pride of self so deep as to scorn injustice to other selves; in pride of lineage so great as to despise no man’s father; in pride of race so chivalrous as neither to offer bastardy to the weak nor beg wedlock of the strong, knowing that men may be brothers in Christ, even though they be not brother-in-law.

I believe in Service–humble reverent service, from the blackening of boots to the whitening of souls; for Work is Heaven, Idleness is Hell, and Wage is the “Well done!” of the Master who summoned all them that labor and are heavy laden, making no distinction between the black sweating cotton-hands of Georgia and the First Families of Virginia, since all distinction not based on deed is devilish and not divine.

I believe in the Devil and his angels, who wantonly work to narrow the opportunity of struggling human beings, especially if they be black; who spit in the faces of the fallen, strike them that cannot strike again, believe the worst and work to prove it, hating the image which their Maker stamped on a brother’s soul.

I believe in the Prince of Peace. I believe that War is Murder. I believe that armies and navies are at bottom the tinsel and braggadocia of oppression and wrong; and I believe that the wicked conquest of weaker and darker nations by nations whiter and stronger but foreshadows the death of that strength.

I believe in Liberty for all men; the space to stretch their arms and their souls; the right to breathe and the right to vote, the freedom to choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine and ride on the railroads, uncursed by color; thinking, dreaming, working as they will in the kingdom of God and love.

I believe in the training of children, black even as white; the leading out of little souls into the green pastures and beside the still waters, not for pelf or peace, but for Life lit by some large vision of beauty and goodness and truth; lest we forget, and the sons of the fathers, like Esau, for mere meat barter their birthright in a mighty nation.

Finally, I believe in Patience–patience with the weakness of the Weak and the strength of the Strong, the prejudice of the Ignorant and the ignorance of the Blind; patience with the tardy triumph of Joy and the mad chastening of Sorrow–patience with God.

A Thousand Beautiful Things
Composer: Annie Lennox
Text: Annie Lennox
arr. Craig Hella Johnson

Written for her 2003 solo album, Bare, Annie Lennox’s A Thousand Beautiful Things is both a song of gratitude and an act of healing. The text reads like a journal of renewal – counting blessings, acknowledging pain, and choosing hope. Its simple refrain, “I thank you for the air to breathe, the heart to beat,” transforms everyday awareness into quiet praise. Concert Chorale has altered Craig Hella Johnson’s arrangement to recall the comfort offered at the end of A Shadow, performed earlier in the concert.

Every day I write the list of reasons why I still believe they do exist
(A thousand beautiful things)
And even though it's hard to see the glass as full and not half empty
(A thousand beautiful things)
So, light me up like the sun
To cool down with your rain
I never want to close my eyes again, never close my eyes
Never close my eyes
I thank you for the air to breathe, the heart to beat, the
Eyes to see again (a thousand beautiful things)
And all the things that's been and done the battles won the good and bad in
everyone
(This is mine to remember)
So, here I go again, 
Singin' by your window, 
Pickin' up the pieces of what's left
To find, 
The world was meant for you and me to figure out our destiny
To live, to die, to breathe, to sleep, to try to make your life complete,
So, light me up like the sun, 
To cool down with your rain, 
I never want to close my eyes again
Never close my eyes

Additional Details

To contribute to the Wind Ensemble's Scotland Tour 2026 Fund, please visit https://www.givecampus.com/s/fu3207.