Look to this Day

SATB, piano | Duration c. 3'30"

Hewitt Hill Music

Look to this Day was commissioned by Alex Kolster and the choirs of Raytown High School in Raytown, Missouri in celebration of the newly renovated Robert B. Atkin Performing Arts Center. This celebratory fanfare is based on a Sanskrit proverb attributed to the Ancient Indian poet and dramatist Kalidasa. The text, which has been adapted for use in this piece by the composer, calls for the reader to embrace the present in order to view the past and future in a more positive light. While this call to action may seem difficult in the current climate of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is also oddly fitting; to make the best of each day, no matter what the circumstances, is to ensure that it will be remembered fondly and that the future will remain a “vision of hope.”

Look to this day for it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course be all reality and truth of your existence:
the joy of growth, the splendor of beauty, the glory of power;
for yesterday is but a memory and tomorrow is a vision,
but today well-lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness
and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day
and greet the dawn as one renewed by light.