A Psalm of Disquiet (2023)

Composer's Note 

I have never been more aware of my world — its state of environmental upheavals and its conditions of political and social survival — than in the past few years, each year "one for the history books," as they say.  As I write, a new war has broken out in Israel and our own government is paralyzed to act through the anarchist shenanigans of a few. COVID looks to never be completely vanquished, illegal child labor in the US has worsened, and misinformation will likely get a strong boost from the astonishingly rapid ascent of AI.   

And yet, the tiny music academy I founded is flourishing with its artists around the world, my musicians and I are stewarding a new music program in the local public schools in my small rural town of a thousand, our northern California homestead has birthed bounty upon bounty of fruit in an unusually wet and wildfire-free year, and my family and other loved ones are determinedly thriving. In my own intimate sphere, the work continues, and we all have to remind ourselves, one another, to rest.  

We sing psalms — mutedly, loudly, atheistically, religiously, perennially optimistic — even as these are psalms of disquiet. Any other kind seems not built for the moment, a moment requiring our reverence for life but also our serious recognition of the troubles before us.  

Psalms of disquiet ask for imagination and resolve; they are to be sung forcefully yet lyrically. And always, they are to be sung in hope, earned through experience rather than through the turning of a blind and wistful eye.   

-- Gabriela Lena Frank (2023)