I had this piece on my list for including on the playlist at some point, then Twitter informed me that today is the composer’s birthday. It also felt right for my mood on another day when I’m quite conscious of what might have been. The bright, declamatory phrase ‘shine on’ that opens it gives me hope. Hope that all this will one day be over. Hope that one day I will get to Athens, where I should have been waking up this morning. Hope that I can sing with my friends again soon. And a cheeky hope that I might get to sing this piece one day: it’s my favourite in Anderson’s ‘4 American choruses’ but of the three in the set that might reasonably be attempted it’s the only one we’ve not sung.