A Summer's Singing is a poem that remains dear to me, as it was the first of now over fifty poems by the great Canadian poet Lorna Crozier, that I have set to music. I was thrilled to be commissioned by musica intima in 2009, and knew immediately that A Summer's Singing would be the perfect text for that gifted ensemble. I decided to begin with a short Buddhist chant-like passage to set up the poem's opening question, "Where does that singing start ... ?" The unison singing of those first few bars gives way to some softly sung, close and crunchy harmonies which express the poet's questioning. As so often occurs when we're searching for something spiritual, we seem to know what "it" is not, well before we know what it is, or where it is. It's "Not the birds at false dawn or their song when morning comes ...."; rather, it is a "different kind of music. Listen, it is somewhere near you. In the heart, emptied of fear." "Where does the singing start? Here, where you are ...", and we can hear it, if we but listen, inside. I hope that my music reflects the humanity and deep emotion I found in Lorna's poem. (LU)