The Mightier Word of Peace

This week I got to premiere a new work by composer Christopher Wicks; written in response to the January 6th Insurrection.

From Christopher:
"After the insurrection of January 6, I was terribly shaken, and briefly nearly
despairing about the USA. Somewhat to my surprise, over the following two
weeks my thoughts coalesced into a poem, and then into a musical setting of it.
Early on the morning of Tuesday the 19 th , I emailed the piece to a friend, Bostonian
pianist and composer Julia Carey, and by that evening, she and her soprano
colleague Kelley Hollis had enthusiastically created a video of my music. My
poem is printed below, and also is available in the notes on the YouTube video."
–C. Wicks


The Mightier Word of Peace
by Christopher Wicks
(for hope for the USA, following the horror of the attempted coup in DC on January 6)

How can a word of peace be spoken
To men and women who behave
Like beasts in rage?
How does one speak
The word of peace?
How can a word of peace be spoken
When glass is broken
And lives are taken
And sanity itself has been forsaken?
Within these walls we once did nullify
Outmoded laws debasing women and men,
But ugly symbols of those laws are now unfurled again,
And cowards, for convenience sake, would idly stand by,
While reason is uprooted,
And a reckless tyrant yells lie after lie.
We will speak of peace, but not of yielding!
We will sing, we will shout it to the sky!
No, we will not leave the glass lying shattered!
We will work as those who remember that which mattered!
Without accountability, no one is free!
Let us sing,
Let freedom ring!
January 19, 2021

​Check out the piece below. It was also featured in 2 simultaneous Sunday broadcasts on January 24th, 2021 from First Church in Boston and Central Square Congregational Church in Bridgewater, MA.