Program note

G. K. Chesterton's short poem "A Christmas Carol" (1900) sings out with beautiful, complex contradictions. In it, he paints the quietness of a mother spending time with her new child, and he contrasts that scene with references to a worrying world led by violent kings. When I read the poem, it felt more than relevant to the world in which we find ourselves today. And its message, in its final stanza, suggested hope for a world that values quietness, love, and nature. In my five-part choral setting of the poem, I wanted the piece to have a clear and singable melody (it is, after all, a carol), but I also wanted for the harmony to, at times, point to the danger of the world lurking outside the calm of this nativity scene.