Morning Light

2020 was a year of unparalleled challenges. Individuals, families, communities of all kinds have had to dig deep to find the inner resources to meet the challenges of each day. Flexibility, strength, resilience, innovation, compassion and care for one another have been at the center of our lives. For choral communities, the connecting practice of singing together has been put on hold, and choirs have born patiently an endless stream of postponements, cancellations, and questions with no easy answers. We know choral singing will return, even if we don’t know exactly when. “Morning Light” is a gift to three choral communities whose friendship and support I have known and felt during this time. Based on a Shaker song by Lydia Annas, “Morning Light” signifies hope and embodies a promise – the light will return.

Tho life’s morn rose bright and cloudless
And the sun did brilliant appear,
There may be a fearful tempest,
Ere the noon of life draweth near.

Then stand firm as the rock of ages,
Tho the fiercest of winds may blow,
The light that illum’d thy early morning
Again will appear ere the evening close.