How Graceful Some Things Are, Falling Apart

2006

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"How Graceful Some Things Are, Falling Apart" exists in versions for soprano, mezzo, or tenor -- plus piano.

This song, which sets text by Jonathan Breit, is an attempt to give expression, in some way, to the unfathomable trauma of 9/11. I envisioned a sense of grace in how New York came together to rescue and heal itself, something I experienced firsthand living in lower Manhattan when the event occurred. I’ve never experienced the kindness and support of strangers as I did on that day and in the difficult months that followed, and I thought of this as I wrote the music.

How graceful some things are, falling apart.
Stopped clocks, a dancer tumbling, or a breaking heart.
A missing child, an empty plate,
the rust on a lost wind-up toy.
A shattered glass.
Or looming towers crumbling
into dust.

June 29, 2024

Journal Zebuline

"At the Aix-en-Provence Festival, Tenor Jonghyun Park matched his art of sur-legato and diction to the modesty and melancholic interiority of the nocturnal repertoire, [How Graceful Some Things Are, Falling Apart] composed by Sarah Kirkland Snider in profound homage to the victims of September 11, 2001."

Florence Lethurgez
June 3, 2021

Exeunt NYC

"emotive...brought tears to my eyes."

Lane Williamson
May 21, 2021

Forbes

"...haunting..."

Darryn King