Let Us Have Peace (2020)

for SATB Madrigal Chorus

Performed by the Minneapolis Madrigal Singers

This piece was written for the Minneapolis Madrigal Singers after a call for new pieces they intended to premiere in Spring 2020. After that was unable to happen, they reconvened in late 2021 and recorded the pieces.

It is written for unaccompanied choir and sets a poem by Nancy Byrd Turner. The text reads:

The earth is weary of our foolish wars.
Her hills and shores were shaped for lovely things,
Yet all our years are spent in bickerings
                    Beneath the astonished stars.

April by April laden with beauty comes,
Autumn by autumn turns our toil to gain,
But hand at sword-hilt, still we start and strain
                    To catch the beat of drums.

Knowledge to knowledge adding, skill to skill,
We strive for others’ good as for our own–
And then, like cavemen snarling with a bone,
                    We turn and rend and kill. . . .

With life so fair, and all too short a lease
Upon our special star! Nay, love and trust,
Not hate and violence shall redeem our dust.
                     Let us have peace!