• The Fo Guang Shan Institute for Humanistic Buddhism (Kaohsiung, Taiwan) invited the composer to write this choral recitation while he was living in Taiwanese Buddhist monasteries researching chant for five months as a U.S. Fulbright Senior Scholar. This dramatization is inspired by the sound of waves (海潮音) inherent in Chinese Buddhist chant liturgy. The final accelerando and subsequent stillness is a core feature of evening chanting at austere Dharma Drum Mountain monastery, located in the hills above the northernmost town on the island of Taiwan. It is as if the silence yells to the heart: “Be mindful!”
• Dhāraṇī (धारणी) is the Sanskrit word for a spoken recitation whose syllables hold psychological and spiritual power in their utterance. In this sense, a dhāraṇī is synonymous with the word “mantra.” Its purpose is to elevate or free the mind; its oration is also intended to help others.     
• Mighty Flame Dharani (Sanskrit: Jvala Mahaugra Dharani; Chinese: 消災 吉祥神咒) can be recited to resolve conflicts due to negative karmic relationships from the past (e.g. financial loss, serious fights, and sudden illness). This mantra is also intended to dispel impending disasters and comfort those with nightmares. For this reason, the Chinese title translates into English as “Eliminating Misfortune Mantra.” 
• In Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, Mighty Flame Dharani is the second of the Ten Short Mantras (十小咒), typically recited in morning chanting services at Buddhist temples. One of the more esoteric traditions in Chinese Buddhism, these short mantras are believed to have been codified by a monk named Master Yulin (玉琳國師). Yulin was the spiritual teacher of Emperor Shunzhi (1638 – 1661), the third emperor of the Qing dynasty. 
• The UVU Chamber Choir is indebted to Venerable Yifa of the Taiwanese Fo Guang Shan monastic tradition for expounding on the Ten Short Mantras and guiding the choir’s meditation practice. The composer is also indebted to Venerable Miao Fan and Venerable Miao Guang for the heartfelt invitation to return to the monastery in 2019 to present this composition to worldwide Buddhist scholars and practitioners at the 7th Symposium on Humanistic Buddhism.

• Dmitri Shostakovich wrote Piano Concerto No. 2, mvt. 2, Opus 102 for his pianist son, Maxim, as a gift for his 19th birthday. Maxim premiered the piece at his graduation from Moscow Conservatory in 1957. 
• In this new choral adaptation, the orchestral accompaniment is replaced by an SATB choir with lyrics by Criddle that plead for the sustaining power of genuine love.
• This SATB adaptation was preceded by a TTBB version written for and dedicated to John Sargeant and premiered in 2013 by Mr. Sargeant and the UVU Men’s Choir (now named UVU Deep Green).
• “Through roads of doubt and pain, may your pure and honest love remain. Love will sustain you.”

• Swedish composer Wilhelm Stenhammar founded and conducted Sweden’s first fully professional orchestra. Regarded by contemporary Swedes as the finest pianist in Sweden, in 1905 he recorded five rolls for player pianos around the world.
• Stenhammar: “What is a song other than spoken melody? The words will give you the melody, you should not want to ‘make up’ something along with it. Then the piano part will automatically emerge from out of the melody. In this way, the music is entirely at the service of the poem: deepening, clarifying.” 
• In Vårnatt, poet Oscar Levertin embraces impermanence by celebrating the same life-giving and life-taking branch which cares for future buds and past withered leaves.
• Opus 30, comprising Folket i Nifelhem (No. 1) and Vårnatt (No. 2) also exists for choir and orchestra.
• The UVU Chamber Choir is indebted to Ragnar Bohlin for lending his expertise with Swedish lyric diction.

• Mary Lou Williams’ compositional voice spanned from boogie-woogie to swinging big band to bebop. She wrote many tunes for Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington, and mentored Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk.
• A midlife conversion to Catholicism led Williams to boldly create a new genre: sacred jazz. In 1964, the same year Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, Williams released Anima Christi on her album “Black Christ of the Andes.” The album was themed on Peruvian St. Martín de Porres, who was canonized by Pope John XXIII in 1962 and is known as the patron saint of mixed-race people and all those seeking racial harmony. Inspired by Williams’ album, Duke Ellington subsequently composed his three “Sacred Concerts” in 1965, 1968, and 1973.
• Williams describes Anima Christi as a “funky gospel solo” over a “swung jazz waltz.” The lyrics are adapted by the composer from a 14th-century prayer.

• Commissioned by the UVU Chamber Choir as part of a program pairing paintings and choral depictions of the Feminine Divine.
• The composer explains:
  

“When I was working on the words for this piece, I consulted with my friend Reverend Alex Reegan, who is a trans man and interfaith minister, to create a text that embodies the energy of the feminine divine that is present in any gender. I chose to use they/them pronouns, which capture both the nonbinary and the nonsingular mystery and grandeur of the divine creating force, and by doing so, welcomes everyone into the work.

I wanted to explore the many aspects of the divine; pairing a grounded Mother Nature with a joyous playful being who is capable of laughter, a force that is present in the large and small moments, the noise and the silence, and most importantly, the divine creative spark in each of us. That all-inclusive, loving creative spirit shows up for me in the potential for movement (“the ready muscle in the sprinter”), the pleasures of modern life (“the steady heat lamp in the winter”), and serves as a reminder not to take myself too seriously (“laugh lines around the all-seeing eye”). In identifying a creator this way, I channel these same qualities into my own life and my own identity, and it’s my hope that the audience for They Are Mother finds themselves within it too."

• Jennifer Lucy Cook (she/her) is a composer and lyricist based in Los Angeles. Jen specializes in musical comedy for the stage and screen, choral music, and pop songwriting. She is the recipient of the 2022 Fissinger Composition Award, the 2022 Chorus Austin Composition Prize and the 2022 Cantus Emerging Composer Award. She is an alumni of the Johnny Mercer Foundation Writer’s Grove, and her theater commissions include Full House Theatre Co., British Youth Musical Theatre, and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. Her musical recaps of The Bachelor recently went viral on TikTok. She earned a Master’s degree in Musical Theater Writing from Goldsmiths University in London and a Bachelor’s in Contemporary Music from Brigham Young University. Jen is mentored by Eric Whitacre.
  

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