Album Notes

The music on this disc celebrates peace. Celebrate peace always, even in the midst of war. War is a great noise of death and destruction, lies and deceit. Confront especially the obscene language of the war-makers, which justifies war and assumes war as a matter of course: Confront war and war talk with silence. There is no response other than this to war. Anything else draws you into its shameless madness and ill-logic. War can be stopped when this Silence is loud enough to drown it out.

The music on this record is contemplative, and celebratory. It is meant to bring peace to the listener, and bring the listener to working for peace. Peace demands reflection, but it also compels celebration.

I play flutes and recorder on these tracks. I am playing flute on most, and alto flute on several, and recorder on the Meditations on the Passion Chorale.

The Spirituals of the African-American tradition, and the Chorales of the Lutheran Church have been the inspiration for many creative musical endeavours. J. S. Bach was profoundly inspired by these simple tunes, as were many other composers since the Reformation, not all of them Protestants. Spirituals have been the basis for composers and improvisers in jazz and other genres for most of the twentieth century.

Celebrate peace with music and dance. Defeat war with deafening silence.