Announcing the release of my latest album, AGAINST WAR, featuring soprano Lisa Rombach and conductor Marek Štilec leading the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice. The album features music from my MUSIC FOR PEACE PROJECT. It begins with DECLARATION OF PEACE for chamber orchestra, followed by AGAINST WAR and EVERYTHING PASSES for soprano and chamber orchestra.
Coming of age in the ’60s, I absorbed in my core a belief that peace was possible. In that small instant of time, it did seem to an optimistic and naïve teenager, that the millions of voices protesting in the streets, energized by rock and roll, could make a difference. The young would take over from the old and make the world a better place. Of course, it didn’t turn out that way – and it never has. Revolutionaries become what they seek to replace. Despite the discouraging tone of these words, I still harbor an inner faith that music possesses a power to reach into the hearts and minds of those who are listening and influence them for the better. With that thought in mind, much of my music was written to encourage thoughts about the possibility of peace. Yes, much martial music has been composed over the centuries to stir up the passions of soldiers to go to war – but music also has the power to elevate, to bring peace to troubled spirits, to light the path to an inner space that is free of anger and strife. Over the years, I have composed a great deal of music intended to encourage thoughts about the possibility of peace – and this album is my first recording from that project with works composed over the past several years.
DECLARATION OF PEACE. Somewhere in the world, there is a war going on, always. Declared or not. If I had the power to wish it, I would simply declare peace, and leave it at that, for all time, putting an end to senseless wars. Not having that power, I’m left to imagine it, creating my own musical declaration.
AGAINST WAR. A suite of songs for voice and orchestra setting some powerful poems I found in the anthology Poets Against the War. The poems were written in response to a, so to speak, call to arms, by poets protesting against the decision to invade Iraq and the anthology was published in 2003. Doing something with these poems had been in the back of my mind for many years. The music is dedicated to the 11,000 or so poets who responded to the call and contributed their words and thoughts to Poets Against the War in the hope that reason would prevail over reaction. If only their effort had prevailed back then, the world would be in a better place today – but fear, hysteria and war mongering ruled the day. In our current times, their words still ring true – and are needed more than ever.
EVERYTHING PASSES. This music started off in one direction, but then reading a brief poem by Peter Levitt turned it in another direction entirely. A gentle poem, read during the same week that the world’s attention was turned to the mass shootings of innocent people in two cities in the United States, it’s imagery of petals falling like past lives, struck home – and became the theme of this symphony.
CREDITS:
Composer: Stanley Grill
Soprano: Lisa Rombach
Conductor: Marek Štilec
Orchestra: Komorni filharmonie Pardubice
Producer: Jiri Štilec
Recording Engineer: Vaclav Roubal
