Composer Notes: 

I apologize, this is a little long, but I hope it both informs and inspires you. I was ecstatic when Dr. Phillip A. Swan contacted me in 2017, to write for his soprano/alto choir, Cantala, at Lawrence University.  Back in 2015, I was gracious to have his choir, beautifully, re-record a piece of mine for a publisher. Because of the success of that recording, I knew that this new piece needed to be perfect. So, a year and a half ago, I began searching for the perfect text.  

I wanted the poem to be relatable/inspiring and the music to be unique and unlike most pieces I had written. In the early stages of my search for the perfect poem, I actually came across, “When I Rise Up,” by Georgia Douglas Johnson. In addition to finding the text early on, I composed, what is currently, the opening melody. Sadly, I quickly realized that someone held the copyright to the poem and scraped the entire idea. This began a long journey of, what I can only describe as, a wild-goose-chase. I began searching for poems again. I contacted roughly5 - 10 poets asking them for permission to use their poetry (which never lead to any success). Well, after a year and a half of searching, I rediscovered Georgia Douglas Johnson’s poetry. This time I found her poems, “When I Rise Up” and “Your World” paired together. In addition to finding her poetry, I still could remember the opening melody I conceived a year and a half ago (even though I had not written it down anywhere). 

- Side note, when I write music, I don’t write my ideas down. If, after significant time, I can’t remember an idea I had, I figure it must have been an idea not worth remembering. 

Anyways, I digress. After extensively researching the publication details for both of these poems, I found some disheartening  information about the rights. First of all, “When I Rise Up,” was published early in her life through a company that no longer exists. In a similar way, “Your World,” was self published toward the end of her life. To make matters worse, I also read a rumor saying that she had never created a will before she died.  In other words, I had no idea who, in this world of 7.5 billion people, could possibly own the rights to her literature. After finding this information, I began, what I can only describe as an FBI-level reconnaissance on her entire life. I created an account on ancestry.com to find documents on her family, children, anyone who could possibly lead me in a direction. This only lead me to finding a death certificate for one of her children and some information on her husband, but no relations. I then went to the largest database in the world, Facebook, only to find nothing. I read every website I could find until I came across a website, on what I think was on the sixth page of my Google search, for the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center. Finally, I had found the owner to the rights and received official approval to use her text.  

Despite this journey being extensive and difficult, I did discover some amazing information about Georgia Douglas Johnson. First of all, she was an African American woman who was published in the 1920s. That fact alone should amaze anyone. She was a strong advocate for women’s rights and often shared her own opinions in her writings. Her collection of poems, “The Heart of a Woman,” is an example of this. This collection spoke of love, loneliness and life’s disappointments. She also expressed her own frustration with our society's constraints on women. This collection of poetry later became an inspiration to Maya Angelou’s 1981 memoir entitled, “The Heart of a Woman.” 

I love many aspects of, “When I Rise Up” and “Your World”, including: the words, meaning, but most of all their timeline. The fact that she had created “When I Rise Up” at the beginning of her life, and “Your World” at the end of her life, speaks of hope for all of us. The syntax used in, “When I Rise Up,” refers to dreams and aspirations that she had.  Statements such as, “When I rise,” as well as, “I will beat my wings,” imply that she had not quite accomplished those things yet. Towards the end of her life, when she wrote, “Your world,” her syntax transformed into being about her accomplishments and how she has grown. For example, “Your world is as big as you make it, I know for I USED to abide.” 

Georgia Douglas Johnson’s journey was, most likely, filled with many trials of racism and sexism. But her journey can serve as a beacon of hope to us all. We all can rise and grow into something beyond what our own imagination can conceive. Stand for what you believe in and be yourself.  

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