Freedom To Be Free and Sky Bound for Tenor & Baritone Voices

Thomas said, "Music is akin to an infinite alphabet." Weaving together two texts, originally written in two different alphabets (about 800 years apart,) Freedom To be Free and Sky Bound unfolds and develops an elegant, resonant, graceful dialogue between Parks' "Freedom" and Rumi's "Love". Textual and musical braids embody Thomas' notion of "infinite alphabet." Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an African-American activist in the civil rights movement, best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has honored her as "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement." Parks received countless recognitions, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Rumi was a 13th-century Persian poet, Hanafi faqih, Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian, and Sufi mystic. Like other mystic and Sufi poets of Persian literature, Rumi's poetry speaks of love which infuses the world. This is made explicit in Rumi's verse (not included in this composition) that describes love as "that flame which, when it blazes up, burns away everything except the Everlasting Beloved." © Augusta Read Thomas