Sweet Stillness

Sweet Stillness is a plea for peace and understanding, to find that sorely needed space for contemplation, grounding, kindness, and grace through humility in our dark and troubled world. The music creates a neutral space to contemplate, center, feel, and extend grace to one another, not just react via invective. I compiled the text from an excerpt of Barthold Heinrich Brockes’ poem Süße Stille, sanfte Quelle, in a translation my dear friend and colleague Kay (Dr. K. M. Knittel) offered to me years ago, and newly written words of my own. The work is scored for SATB soloist, SATB chorus, piano, and strings and is dedicated “To Kay Knittel who still lights the world around us.” Sweet Stillness was commissioned by Catholic University of America’s Rome School of Music, Drama and Art.