After having had several successful presentations of The Song Of Thanksgiving I started thinking about writing a cantata on the story of Joseph. That was about 30 years ago! You ask me what took so long? One answer could be—life kept happening! I realize now that I was not yet ready. God had some more things that He wanted to do to prepare me for this task. I had to go through some more hard things before my heart was ready. The hardest one was going through my husbands battle with Alzheimer’s disease. When my heart was totally broken God could start filling it with music!

During my husband’s illness I took a class entitled “Caring for care givers”. At the end of each class we were asked to make an action plan for the following week. This was to be something for ourselves. The first week mine was something like—play the piano for 15 minutes one time during the week. Each week we were able to expand our action plan. During weeks 5 and 6 we were asked to make a long term action plan. “The Story Of Joseph” came into my mind. I wrote it in my book and spoke it out loud to the class!! That was in September 2011. I still had 15 months of caregiving before my husband died on December 30, 2012.

During the summer of 2012 I started choosing verses from the Bible in Genesis 37-50 that tell the story of Joseph. The dreams and the coat of many colors are important but I think the primary message of the story is that Joseph could say to his brothers “You meant evil against me, but GOD MEANT IT FOR GOOD”!! Because God had brought Joseph to a place of authority his family was saved from the famine in the land.

When I first started thinking about writing this 30 years ago I wanted the end be when Joseph was dying he said to his people “GOD will surely visit you and bring you out of this land to the land of which He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob”. I choose the following 7 notes for God will surely visit you:

I have used those 7 notes by a solo instrument for the beginning and the end of the cantata. I have used that melody and the 5 note melody for “God meant it for good” in different places throughout the cantata.

I have all of the melodies written. I am now working on the choral parts. Then I will write the accompaniment.

The words are from the Bible. The music is original. The central message is GOD MEANT IT FOR GOOD.

My vision is to have a group of professionals and amateur musicians for the premier performance.