Here We Are

"By looking back we're together forever." One of the best ways to remember and honor those that we've lost is to talk about them and remember them. It's through our sharing of stories and memories that they will live on in our thoughts and in our hearts. The emptiness we feel for their absence never goes away, but by keeping their memory alive, they are still with us. And what better way to remember them than to look through old photo albums and scrapbooks, or scroll through phones and tablets and see images of all of the wonderful times we shared together.

"Here We Are" is a heartfelt song that aims to set that notion to music. It imagines that old friends are sitting together looking at photographs, laughing and crying and remembering good times from the past – "Here we are about to go on a big journey," "Here we are skipping stones on a river," "Here we are with our family," etc. The piece starts very simply with just a rhythm section. It slowly builds throughout the song to a full orchestra. There are three vocal parts, but as usual, parts 2 and 3 are optional. You might even consider starting with a soloist or small group so that the vocal parts are included in the building effect.

Note that at bar 36, the song breaks into a slightly different melody and has a very lovely choral sound. On our performance track, you'll hear that we closed the "n" of "winter" in the first ending (bar 42). That, too, is optional, but it really sounds nice if you can pull it off.

Throughout the song, keeping the emotion and energy is key. If you have the ability to project images during your performance of this song, you could collect favorite photos from your choir to show while the song is being sung.

There are several free downloadables for this piece that are available on our web site. You'll find a unison version, an a cappella version, and, of course, isolated parts 2 and 3 tracks to aid in learning them.