Winner of the Nathan Davis Grand Prize in Composition in the 2025-2026 Daniel Thompson Memorial Competition for Young Composers.
Commissioned by the Young New Yorkers’ Chorus,
Alex Canovas, artistic director.
What does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to grow? To move through time, experience life, and change? In this moment, what feels most true to me is this: sometimes, growing up can hurt. Life is filled with moments of emotional, physical, and mental strain. Yet it is through these outward struggles and quiet, internal battles, through these growing pains, that we are reminded we are alive and we are still growing.
This piece was inspired by E. F. Hayward’s poem “Sunshine and Shower,” which notes that we cherish bright, sunny days, but love and appreciate them most “when it has rained awhile.” Drawing from this, I wanted to reflect more on this deeply human experience of growth through struggle. While the text in this piece points to physical pains and changes, it also speaks more broadly to life’s cloudy days: the emotional and mental challenges we all carry and move through.
To be alive is not only to know joy, but to endure through these strains and struggles.
Through our growing pains, we learn, we improve, we grow, and we become.
Through them, we live.
Premiered May 8 & May 9, 2026 – The Church of St. Mary the Virgin, New York, NY
Young New Yorkers’ Chorus – Alex Canovas, conductor, Mike Gaertner, piano
Audio – David Merrill, Video – Jacob McCoy
TEXT:
I have these growing pains –
My body aches with a back that’s sore.
New wrinkles etch across my face
Beside dark eyes and acne scars.
The scars, the strains, and marks –
Roll through me like a storm.
Like a flower in the rain,
My body bends and pulls.
And under the weight of darkened clouds,
The flowers and I will bow.
But after the heavy storm,
The flowers don’t wilt away.
They turn their faces
Toward the sun in the sky
And grow.
And grow,
And grow,
And grow,
Into the shining light.
I have these growing pains –
But maybe that’s what it means to be alive.
-PJ Mooney (b. 2000)