Upcoming Concert

Grant Us Peace: The Sky Is Silent. We Are Not. 
​Sunday, April 26 – 3 pm
with Philharmonia Northwest
​Bastyr University Chapel, 14500 Juanita Dr NE, Kenmore​
​In November 1963, Leonard Bernstein responded to the Kennedy assassination by saying, “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” In a world fractured by war and division, Kirkland Choral Society's spring concert brings together two musical mosaics—responses to war that blend both sacred and secular texts into acts of remembrance, resistance, and hope. Our partner orchestra Philharmonia Northwest will join us for this powerful and evocative performance.
Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem, written between two world wars, combines the Latin Mass with wartime poetry of American writer Walt Whitman as an urgent plea for peace. Composed nearly 70 years later, Tarik O’Regan’s Triptych is a more modern response to wartime violence, specifically the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that O’Regan witnessed in 2005. (Twenty years later, this conflict persists.) Triptych weaves texts from Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and secular traditions into a tapestry of shared human longing. Though born of different times, both works draw on multiple texts and traditions to confront violence and acknowledge the dignity of every human life. 
Imagine the sound of peace: silence in heaven, and harmony on earth. Dona nobis pacem—grant us peace.
Kirkland Choral Society gratefully acknowledges the financial and other support of these generous organizations: