SSAATTBB Choir

Approximate performance time: 5 min.
Year composed: 1999

Premiered by Staples High School of Westport, Connecticut

Commissioned by the Westport (CT) Millennium Coordinating Committee

Program Notes

When I was approached to write a new work for my alma mater, Staples High School, as part of the Westport, Connecticut Millennium Celebration, I thought using the words of a Connecticut poet would be perfect. I had recently gotten a Christmas card from Edward Happ, whose poetry I had set in my cantata for women’s chorus, The Return. Every year, Ed writes a beautiful poem in his holiday card. The poem that year, “Two Deer,” was a marvelous expression of a “holy” moment when time stops and we are taken out of ourselves. Peace on Earth tries to capture that sense of stillness.

Text

Two deer in stillness of winter,
Do they run towards the embrace of the wood,
away from the hunter, or free?
At this end time we rush to tomorrow,
away from yesterday,
And pause on this day to listen
for the timeless.