Super flumina Babylonis (Psalm 137) is a communal lament about remembering Zion and yearning for Jerusalem, while dwelling in exile during the Babylonian captivity (597-539 BCE). The psalm is a regular part of liturgy in Jewish, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican and other Protestant traditions, and is generally known in English as “By the rivers of Babylon”. It has been set to music by many composers, including this beautiful work by Orlande de Lassus.

Super flumina Babylonis

Super flumina Babylonis illic sedimus et flevimus, dum recordaremur tui, Sion.

Over the waters of Babylon, there we sat and wept, as we remembered Sion.

Chris Hutchings is a composer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. His choral works have won several awards and had worldwide performances and broadcasts. The Wall is a searing indictment of the many types of
barriers that people build to exclude others.

The Wall

They crossed the borders to get here;
They crossed the lines they could not see;
They wanted all they could get here,
A job, a life, to just breathe free;
A wall, we said, a great big beautiful wall, with cam’ras, concrete, steel and razor wire,
Will keep them out; we’ll keep them out; they won’t get past our wall.
They crossed the ocean to get here, they fled the bombs that we had sold;
Their craft was toss’d on the tempest,
A huddled mass packed in the hold;
Our laws, we said, our shifting complex laws, a labyrinth of documents and words will keep them out; we’ll keep them out; they won’t get past our laws.
They passed through horror to get here,
Fled dangers they could not ignore;
They saw our lights in the distance,
A lamp beside a golden door;
Our hearts, we said, our harden’d, thank-less hearts, with kindness and compassion hammer’d out of them,
Will keep them out; we’ll keep them out; they won’t get to our hearts.

O Virga splendens, from the Libre Vermell de Montserrat, is a popular 14th-century song from Spain, sung by people making a pilgrimage to the monastery of Montserrat in the mountains of Catalonia. The song
can be sung as a single melody line, or as a two- or three-part round.

O Virgo splendens

O virgo splendens hic in monte celso
miraculis serrato fulgentibus ubique
quem fideles conscendunt universi.
Eia, pietatis oculo placato
cerne ligatus fune peccatorum;
ne infernorum ictibus graventur
sed cum beatis tua prece vocentur.

O Virgin resplendent here on the lofty mountain,
jagged with its shining miracles about,
which all the faithful climb.
Ah, with an eye of mercy
see those bound by the bonds of sin,
let them not be weighed down by the blows of
Hell,
but be called by your prayers to be with the
blessed.

Derrick Skye is an American composer who has Ghanaian, Nigerian, British, Irish, and Native American ancestry. His ancestry and identity have led him to claim and develop an “American” aesthetic that incorporates many cultural influences into his work, reflecting the diverse communities he is part of. Skye passionately believes in music as a doorway into understanding other cultures and different ways of living. Through learning the music of other cultures, the opportunity for dialogue rather than conflict between strangers is opened, and our society can become one with less conflict due to cultural misunderstanding. He is deeply invested in fostering creative and effective collaboration between artists of different disciplines and traditions.

One not One was inspired by the philosophical relationships between the concept of one and many. The work was influenced by the melodic and rhythmic structures in Balkan music, as well as the musical form and percussive elements found in the music of Tokelau, a Polynesian island that is slowly disappearing under water due to the effects of global warming.

One not One

strong will
one is strong
but many is strength
take a step as a body
take a leap, soul
take fear to be mortal
remember the whole
intellectual
we call for mirrors for bodies
intellectual
focus on layers of soul

be self, be whole
fearless we walk with many
manifest healing
all is strength

Chris Hutchings (see bio above)
The poignant poem, Where are my unnumbered days?, is by Mohamed Assaf, a Syrian refugee who now lives in England. Mohamed wrote this poem, which describes his longing for home, soon after his arrival in
England at the age of 12.

Where Are My Unnumbered Days?

Once, I lived in a beautiful town;
Once, I owned a beautiful house,
with a grand garden full of flowers,
and I was prince of it all. Once,
I lived in a house with a name;
And now, I am just a number.

Nations talked to nations and robbed me of myself.
They made me a number among millions.

But my rights have no number.
My home had no number.
I could not count the petals of the flowers.
My childhood in the garden had no limits on it.

Take me back to my country and I can show you the numbers.
The numbers who suffer. The quantities of beauty. The fallen flowers.

Saunder Choi is a Los Angeles-based Filipino composer and choral artist. His works have also been performed by the Philippine Madrigal Singers, the Crossing Choir, the LA Master Chorale Chamber Singers, Taipei Philharmonic Choir, and many others. As an arranger and orchestrator, Saunder has written for Tony-Award winner Lea Salonga, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and numerous other orchestras. As a tenor, he sang in the soundtrack of Disney’s The Lion King (2019) and Mulan (2020), for the John Williams’ Anniversary Celebration at the Hollywood Bowl, and many others.

The composer writes: “I decided to write Welcome Table as a follow up to my pieces New Colossus and Give You Rest (both written for the L.A. Choral Lab) to form a set called Songs of Welcome, my personal and continuing musical reflections on being an immigrant in this country. As a BIPOC, gay immigrant, I often wonder if I will ever be truly welcome in this country. Tensions surrounding immigration are at an all-time high, with mothers being separated with their kids, children in detention cells, visa bans; even the legal immigrant status is threatened. It seems that people are confusing nationalism and love for country with xenophobia and hatred. Welcome Table is inspired by and reflects on the civil rights spiritual “I’m Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table”, examining it from the eyes of an immigrant and the other. Perhaps one of these days, we will all be welcome at the table.”
Seattle Pro Musica co-commissioned this work in 2019, just prior to the Covid lock-down. We are proud to present one of the first in-person performances.

Welcome Table

Am I welcome?
Am I welcome to sit at the table and eat with you,
Drink with you, feast on milk and honey with you?
Am I welcome?

Are they welcome too?
Are we welcome to sit together as all kinds of people do?
The poor, the hungry, the homeless, refugees?
Are they welcome too?

Are you satisfied?
Are you satisfied with the world that you live in?
Are you satisfied with your wealth, money, and power?
That you eat and never get hungry.
Are you satisfied?

Or are you hungry?
Hungry for wealth, money, power?
Hungry for everything your privilege gets you, ungiving and unforgiving?
Are you hungry?

Am I worthy?
Am I self-sufficient?
Able to stand on my own two feet, and dream with you, hope with you,
Love with you?

Am I welcome?
Am I welcome to sit at the table and eat with you,
Drink with you, feast on milk and honey with you?
Perhaps one of these days.

Caroline Shaw is a New York-based musician—vocalist, violinist, composer, and producer—who performs in solo and collaborative projects. She was the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013 for Partita for 8 Voices, written for the Grammy-winning Roomful of Teeth, of which she is a member. Recent commissions include new works for Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw with Sō Percussion and Gil Kalish, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s with John Lithgow, and many others. Recent premieres include the Seattle Symphony, Anne Sofie von Otter with Philharmonia Baroque, the LA Philharmonic, and Juilliard 415. Once she got to sing in three-part harmony with Sara Bareilles and Ben Folds at the Kennedy Center, and that was pretty much the bees’ knees and elbows. Caroline has studied at Rice, Yale, and Princeton, currently teaches at NYU, and is a Creative Associate at the Juilliard School. Caroline loves the color yellow, otters, Beethoven opus 74, Mozart opera, Kinhaven, the smell of rosemary, and the sound of a janky mandolin.

To the Hands was commissioned by The Crossing as a response to Ad manus from Dieterich Buxtehude’s 17th century masterpiece, Membra Jesu Nostri. To the Hands begins inside the 17th century sound of Buxtehude. It expands and colors and breaks this language, as the piece’s core considerations, of the suffering of those around the world seeking refuge, and of our role and responsibility in these global and local crises, gradually
come into focus.
The prelude turns the tune of Ad manus into a wordless plainchant melody, punctured later by the strings’ introduction of an unsettling pattern. The second movement fragments Buxtehude’s choral setting of the central question, “quid sunt plagae istae in medio manuum tuarum,” or “what are these wounds in the midst of your hands.” It settles finally on an inversion of the question, so that we reflect, “What are these wounds in the midst of our hands?” We notice what may have been done to us, but we also question what we have done and what our role has been in these wounds we see before us. The text that follows in the third movement is a riff on Emma Lazarus’ sonnet The New Colossus, famous for its engraving at the base of the Statue of Liberty. The poem’s lines “Give me your tired, your poor,/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” and its reference to the statue’s “beacon-hand” present a very different image of a hand — one that is open,
beckoning, and strong. No wounds are to be found there — only comfort for those caught in a dangerous and complex environment. While third movement operates in broad strokes from a distance, the fourth zooms in on the map so far that we see the intimate scene of an old woman in her home, maybe setting the table for dinner alone. Who is she, where has she been, whose lives has she left? This simple image melts into a meditation on the words “in caverna” from the Song of Solomon, found in Buxtehude’s fourth section, Ad latus. In the fifth movement the harmony is passed around from one string instrument to another, overlapping only briefly, while numerical figures are spoken by the choir. These are global figures of internally displaced persons, by country, sourced from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) data reported in May 2015 (accessed on 20/03/2016 at www.internal-displacement.org). Sometimes data is the cruelest and most honest poetry. The sixth and final movement unfolds the words “in caverna” into the tumbling and comforting promise of “ever ever” — “ever ever will I hold you, ever ever will I enfold you”. They could be the words of Christ, or of a parent or friend or lover, or even of a nation.

[text from Buxtehude’s Ad manus — Zechariah 13:6 — adapted by Caroline Shaw, with the addition of in medio manuum nostrarum (“in the midst of our hands”)]

quid sunt plagae istae
quid sunt plagae istae in medio manuum tuarum
in medio
quid sunt plagae istae
quid sunt plagae istae in medio manuum nostrarum

what are those wounds
what are those wounds in the midst of your hands
in the midst
what are those wounds
what are those wounds in the midst of our hands

[text by CS, responding to the 1883 sonnet “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, which was mounted on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1903]

Her beacon-hand beckons:
give
give to me
those yearning to breathe free
tempest-tossed they cannot see
what lies beyond the olive tree
whose branch was lost amid the pleas
for mercy, mercy
give
give to me
your tired fighters fleeing flying
from the
from the
from
let them
i will be your refuge
i will be your refuge
i will be
i will be
we will be
we will

[text by CS — the final line, in caverna, is from Buxtehude’s Ad latus — the line from the Song of Songs, in foraminibus petrae, in caverna maceriae, or “in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow of the cliff”]

ever ever ever
in the window sills or
the beveled edges
of the aging wooden frames that hold
old photographs
hands folded
folded
gently in her lap

ever ever
in the crevices
the never-ending efforts of
the grandmother's tendons tending
to her bread and empty chairs
left for Elijah
where are they now

in caverna
in caverna

The choir speaks global figures of internal displacement, sourced from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (http://www.internal-displacement.org/global-figures — accessed 01/03/2016). The numbers spoken are the numbers of internally displaced persons by country, in ascending order. These are people, some of whom may have legal refugee status, who have been displaced within their own country due to armed conflict, situations of generalized violence or violations of human rights.

[text by CS — The final line is a reprise from the Zechariah text.]

i would hold you
i would hold you
ever ever will i hold you
ever ever will i enfold you

in medio
in medio
in medio
in medio
in medio manuum tuarum

Reginald Unterseher is Music Director and Composer-in-Residence at Shalom United Church of Christ, Richland, Washington, and was the Washington State Music Teacher’s Association’s “Composer of the Year” for 2013. His compositions are regularly performed throughout the world and have been featured at national conventions in the US as well as at Carnegie Hall in New York City. His career path has careened between being a ski instructor, an opera and music theater performer, an at-home dad to three children, a conductor, and voice teacher. Reg has had more of his compositions performed in a nuclear reactor than any other composer in history, living or dead.

The text, by Sheila Dunlop, speaks to themes of spirituality and legacy, honoring our place in the world and those who have gone before us.

The Steady Light

Let my footfall on this blessed earth tread lightly as a falling leaf.
Let my shadow from this blessed sun shut no one from the light.
Let my dance beneath these holy stars grow stronger with the years.
Let my heart expand with sky-wide love.
Those who go before hold high the steady light
that shows me where I am.

Born to refugee parents and raised in Australia, Melissa Dunphy immigrated to the United States in 2003 and has since become an award-winning and acclaimed composer specializing in vocal, political, and theatrical music. She first came to national attention in 2009 when her large-scale choral work the Gonzales Cantata was featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Harper’s Magazine, National Review, Comedy Central, and on Fox News and MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, where host Rachel Maddow described it as “the coolest thing you’ve ever seen on this show.”

#UnitedWeDream is the final movement of American DREAMers, a work commissioned by PhilHarmonia (Mitos Andaya Hart, director) to bring to light the stories of immigrants in the wake of anti-immigrant rhetoric during and after the 2016 election. Five texts from five young Americans who were brought to America as children were chosen—Marlene Rangel, Javier Zamora, Janine Joseph, Julia Montejo, and Claudia D. Hernández—and those texts were woven into a multi-movement work that honors their story and inspires hope, empathy, and action.

American DREAMers (#UnitedWeDream)

Aquí estamos.
This is where we found our home away from home.
This is where we belong.
Mother Earth, who feeds us all,
takes our roots, their roots,
no matter how long, how short—
she’s whispering: this is where you belong.

Resist! Pelea con diente y madre!
This is where you belong, Dreamer!

Helen Anderson
Jordan Berg *
Lauren Carr
Marisa Dahlman *+
Katie Skovholt *+
Jenny Spence *+

Lillian Balmforth
Marilyn Colyar *
Jonna Farley
Erin Gabriel *
Miriam Gnagy *
Elly Hale *+
Carole Jones
Shadia Kawa Choudry
Tami McTaggart +
Teresa Nemeth
Jenn Newland
Ada Ng *
Amy Peer *+
Kristin Percy Calaff
Joy Portella
Jan Strand +
Judy Williams
Catherine Wolff

Audra Anderson
Jordan Brattain
Fiona Hatfield
Meaghan Leferink +
Teena Littleton *+
Rose Morrison +
Emi Nakamura *+
Corina Rahmig +
Marit Trelstad
Hannah Won *+

Deb Arnold
Shirley Beresford
Gail Broder
Cathy Federici *
Mara Forster-Smith *
Nancy Haver
Liz Langeland
Karen Maneman
Liz Reed Hawk *+
Elizabeth Sanders *+
Karen Segar

Jacob Bernado *^
Kaelee Bolme *^
David Dodman*^
Matthew Li

David Carpman
Geoff Cunard
Luke Raffanti
Danny Szydlo *^
Robert Wade

Jim Bartscher *^
Ryan Gao *^
Peter Hemmen
Lee Maneman *^
Grant Vandehey
Robin Wyatt-Stone *^
Mark Yeary ^

Matthew Bosley *^
Tom Lin*^
James Mayclin
Jon Repp *^
Chris Rule *^

Holly Eckert-Lewis, violin 1
HyeKyung Seo, violin 2
Erin Wight, viola
Rajan Krishnaswami, cello
Steve Schermer, double bass

Karen P. Thomas, Artistic Director & Conductor

Katie Skovholt, Executive Director

Hannah Siglin, Operations & Administrative Associate

Dwight Beckmeyer, Accompanist

Jenn Newland, Stage Manager

Wes Kim, President
Anne Clamoungou, Vice President
Rick Johnson, Treasurer
Jan Strand, Corporate Secretary
Beth Alley
Shadia Kawa Choudry
Paul Henderson
Meaghan Leferink
Briana Schwartz
Kenn Sebastian
Kacey Stevens
Robert Wade