New Music USA Online Library

Work on SYMPHONY FOR PEACE started late in 2023 as wars raged in both Ukraine and the Middle East. Unlike other wars that have been fought since the last century, these are wars that pose a threat of escalating on a world-wide scale.

 

Not that music ever brought peace. But, as Lenny Bernstein famously said, “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly, than ever before.”

 

Scattered throughout the score, in somewhat altered form, are melodies by various composers ranging from the Renaissance through the 20th century that were settings of the words “dona nobis pacem.” My intent was to write music without voices but where the orchestral musicians could inwardly think those words as they played their melodies.