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About the Composer

Joan Szymko

Joan Szymko is widely regarded as an outstanding composer of choral music in America today. With a catalog of over 100 choral works in print, her music is sung regularly at choral festivals and competitions across North America and abroad and for nearly two decades has been heard on stage or in sessions at every...

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Joan Szymko Music

A Lamp for Peace

Name: A Lamp for Peace
SKU: JS-126
Availability: InStock

Joan Szymko

A warm and richly textured secular hymn.

fall, secular, spring, summer, winter

Duration: 3-5 min.

JS-126

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for SATB chorus and piano

A tree, a gathering place, a rising union of voices and prayer, “A Lamp for Peace” is a warm and richly textured secular hymn. Beginning with an a cappella declaration, it then features section solos, polyphony, and 4-part rhythmic unison with some divisi. Commissioned by the Master Singers of Milwaukee for their 5oth Anniversary season, it also celebrates beloved Wisconsin poet laureate, Ellen Kort.

Text

Let us circle the tree let it
rise Bless the strength
of its roots its wings of song
the way it wears the stunning
light of morning Let it be
a lamp for peace a prayer wheel
where love circles and multiplies
Let it be an altar a resting place
where we can tell one another
all the stories of the world