A Choral Journey Without End: Joby Talbot’s Piedra de Sol

by richard carrick

On January 23, 2026, Craig Hella Johnson conducted the GRAMMY™ award winning ensemble Conspirare in the premiere of Piedra de Sol, the newest large-scale choral work by British composer Joby Talbot. For those familiar with Talbot’s celebrated Path of Miracles, this seventy-minute setting of Octavio Paz’s monumental poem of the same name feels at once familiar and entirely different. If Path of Miracles is a pilgrimage, Piedra de Sol is a meditation—immersive, surreal, sensual, and constantly in motion.

The music rarely settles into traditional cadences or pauses, and the listener is carried forward through wave after wave of sound, poetry, rhythm, and color. Talbot describes the poem itself as possessing an “endless fluidity and ceaseless momentum,” qualities that became central to the architecture of the piece. Then, near the end, and to astonishing effect, the opening text unexpectedly returns, revealing that the entire journey has been circular all along.

Talbot describes his goal as a composer: “What I’m trying to do with these large scale pieces, be they choral pieces, ballets, or operas, is to take people out of their lives and take them on a journey, and then deposit them back into the real World in a changed state.” That ambition lies at the center of Piedra de Sol, a work that may very well become one of the most important additions to the contemporary choral repertoire in recent years.

Discovering Octavio Paz

The origins of this piece began in ballet, one of Talbot’s most prolific mediums. While composing music for Like Water for Chocolate, a ballet based on Laura Esquivel’s famous novel, Talbot needed a text for a climactic scene between the two main characters. Mexican friends repeatedly pointed him toward the poetry of Octavio Paz, the Nobel Prize-winning Mexican writer whose influence on twentieth-century literature and culture remains immense.

Talbot eventually selected a short excerpt from Paz’s epic poem Piedra de Sol and immediately found himself captivated not only by the imagery, but by the musicality of the Spanish language itself. It was his first major experience setting extended Spanish text, and he discovered that the flowing contours of the language seemed to fit naturally within his compositional voice.

When he later read the full poem, the experience profoundly affected him. Written in 1957, Paz’s Piedra de Sol (“Sunstone”) consists of 584 hendecasyllabic lines, a number intentionally connected to the synodic cycle of Venus in Aztec cosmology. The poem famously ends with the same lines with which it begins, creating an endless circular structure that mirrors recurring cycles of time, memory, history, love, and human experience.

Talbot recalled that when he reached the end of the poem and realized it had circled back to its beginning, “it was one of the most visceral reactions I’ve had in reading a piece of poetry.” That emotional reaction became one of the central inspirations behind the composition itself.

Probably should add something here about Craig and Joby deciding on this as the topic for the commission from Conspirare!

A Different Kind of Choral Work

One of the most striking aspects of Piedra de Sol is its structure. Unlike Path of Miracles, which unfolds in four distinct movements––much like a symphony––Piedra de Sol is conceived as one continuous musical arc. The piece never fully stops. Even moments of stillness feel more like an intake of breath than a conclusion. Talbot intentionally composed the work in a way that made it feel restless and fluid, mirroring the poem’s constantly shifting imagery and dreamlike movement between intimacy and cosmic scale. As Craig Hella Johnson observed, “there’s not a single period in the entire poem,” resulting in a continuous unfolding of images, emotions, and sonic landscapes.

The result is a listening experience that feels like a long-form meditation or cinematic journey. The music moves seamlessly between soaring lyricism, dense harmonic clusters, rhythmic propulsion, whispered textures, explosive climaxes, and moments of haunting fragility. Talbot’s background in film, ballet, and theatrical storytelling is immediately apparent throughout the score. Talbot described the experience of reading Paz’s poem as becoming “immersed in this extraordinary meditation,” a feeling the music mirrors throughout its seventy-minute span.

Throughout the work, the singers shift rapidly between luminous sustained sonorities, intricate rhythmic interplay, chant-like passages, and shimmering textures. This constant transformation is one of the defining characteristics of the piece. The choir is not simply declaiming the poem—they actually become a part of the poem’s surrealist atmosphere and psychological landscape.

The Role of the Marimba

Another difference between Path of Miracles and Piedra de Sol is that it features an optional marimba throughout. The use of the marimba was, at first, a practical measure. While excellent ensembles are certainly capable of maintaining pitch for 70 minutes, including marimba helps alleviate the pressure. Talbot and Johnson agreed that the work’s harmonic language and extended tonal ambiguity required some form of pitch grounding. However, Talbot wanted the sound world to be separate from the organ or piano traditions. 

Talbot maintains that the piece can work well as either an a cappella work or with the marimba. However, the inclusion of the marimba evolved throughout the premiere’s rehearsals and using it does not feel superfluous. Talbot even recalled a memorable moment after a London performance of Like Water for Chocolate when the Mexican ambassador spoke enthusiastically about the marimba above all else. “If the Mexican ambassador approves the inclusion of a marimba,” he joked, “then maybe we should.”

The marimba, performed beautifully by percussionist Tom Burritt at the premiere, added an unmistakable atmospheric dimension to the score. Talbot, Burritt, and Johnson all collaborated throughout the rehearsal process, adjusting the marimba part to best serve the composition. The result of this collaboration was that the marimba became an extension of the choir itself—anchoring harmonies, reinforcing rhythmic motion, and contributing to the work’s warm, resonant, and otherworldly sound palette. 

Its inclusion also subtly connects the work to broader Latin American sonic traditions without resorting to cliché or superficial exoticism.

Challenges for Conductors and Ensembles

For conductors, Piedra de Sol presents enormous opportunities alongside significant challenges. The piece demands extraordinary vocal endurance, concentration, and pacing from both singers and conductor. Maintaining momentum across a seventy-minute uninterrupted structure requires a long-range architectural approach more commonly associated with opera or symphonic repertoire than traditional choral literature. Hella Johnson described the work as “one of the hardest things we’ve done” noting both the emotional and physical demands the piece places on performers.

The Spanish diction also presents an added layer of complexity, particularly for ensembles without fluent speakers. Craig Hella Johnson spoke openly about the challenge of helping both singers and audiences fully inhabit the language and emotional world of the piece. Yet the immersive nature of the music often transcends linguistic barriers. Even listeners unfamiliar with Spanish can sense the emotional trajectory and intensity embedded within the score.

What may prove most difficult, however, is not technical execution but sustaining the emotional and psychological journey of the work. Hella Johnson described the poem as “clause after clause” with “not a single period in the entire poem,” creating a constant stream of images and impressions that resist traditional narrative structure. “Sometimes you can’t even grab an image,” he explained. “It’s just a feathering of half-thoughts.” That fluidity became one of the defining challenges—and strengths—of the piece. Rather than relying on clear formal landmarks or conventional dramatic pacing, Piedra de Sol gradually immerses performers and listeners alike into its unfolding sound world. As Talbot himself noted, “you just become immersed in this extraordinary meditation.”

The Future of Immersive Choral Programming

In many ways, Piedra de Sol points toward an emerging direction in contemporary choral music: immersive concert experiences that blend poetry, atmosphere, lighting, theatrical pacing, and deeply emotional storytelling. The Conspirare premiere incorporated carefully designed lighting and staging elements that enhanced the work’s meditative and surreal qualities without distracting from the music itself.

As audiences increasingly seek experiential and emotionally transformative performances, works like Piedra de Sol become especially important. Talbot has created something that feels simultaneously ancient and modern—a piece rooted in mythic cycles and timeless human questions, yet unmistakably contemporary in its sonic language and emotional intensity.

Talbot quotes Paz as he describes Piedra de Sol as “a voyage whose course bends, advances, recedes, comes full circle and arrives forever.” By the final return of the opening text, listeners realize they have not simply heard a composition. They have inhabited a space. Like the poem itself, the work never truly ends. It simply begins again.

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about the author

Richard Carrick is a conductor, clinician, singer, and educator whose work spans professional, academic, sacred, and community music settings. He currently serves as Director of Choral Activities at The College of St. Scholastica, where he conducts the Concert Choir, Chamber Choir, and Bella Voce and teaches courses in conducting, vocal pedagogy, and choral methods. Richard also serves as Chorus Master for the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra and Director of Music at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary in Duluth, Minnesota.

Carrick is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Borealis Chamber Artists, a professional chamber music ensemble dedicated to innovative, inclusive, and collaborative performances. In addition, he serves as Managing Editor of The Star of the North, the publication of the American Choral Directors Association of Minnesota, supporting the professional growth of Minnesota’s choral community and advancing statewide choral dialogue.

He earned his Doctor of Musical Arts in Choral Conducting from the University of Washington, studying with Geoffrey Boers and Giselle Wyers. His musical interests include choral-orchestral masterworks, early music, and contemporary repertoire that explores themes of justice, identity, and belonging.

Outside of music, Richard enjoys exploring the trails of northern Minnesota, playing golf, and spending time with his wife and children.