Premiered on Sunday, December 10, 2023 at State Street United Methodist Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Commissioned by Lee Young in honor of the State Street UMC Chancel Choir.
Performing Choir: State Street UMC Chancel Choir
Guest Conductor: Benjamin Carter
Program Notes: During my time studying various Advent scriptures, Isaiah 40:1-5 stood out because of its first verse. Isaiah isn’t just consoling the community of believers in this passage, he is also imploring them to go out into the world and create the “comfort” that he speaks of. While the word “comfort” can evoke a sense of calm and peace, I also viewed it as a call to spread Christ’s love in a desperate, war-torn, and withering world that sorely needs it. In this sense, Isaiah’s call for comfort is a call to action for believers to become the living embodiment of that comfort. This Christian but also profoundly Wesleyan idea of selflessly serving others made Isaiah 40: 1-5 an obvious and moving choice, and I sought to evoke both an enduring peace and a call to action in the composition. -Benjamin Carter
Isaiah 40: 1-5: Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”