From the composer of I Dream of Peace

I am thrilled to have I DREAM OF PEACE performed at PICCFEST 2003. I wish I could be there to hear the performance because I know how much work goes into putting this cry for the end to world madness together; because it is still very timely, and because with each ensemble's performance I am moved in different ways.

It is that personal touch to the text and music that has been at the heart of the success of this work, and that makes it so compelling. When you consider all of the factors involved in this work coming to life - the pain of those children of former Yugoslavia who wrote it (and I know of three who perished in that conflict); the text, which was published by UNICEF and found in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, just demanding that it be set to music; my Higher Power who gave me the ability to do just that, andthe musicians who perform it without letting the difficulties in the music stand in their way.

And this is difficult music to perform, although I don't like for the young voices to know that. In their innocence they forge ahead and bring those heart-rending words to life. It is my hope that someday I can hear the work performed by children from around the world getting together in one place to try to teach adults that war is, as the children sing in the third movement, " the saddest word that flows from my quivering lips. It is a wicked bird...that never comes to rest. It is a deadly bird that destroys our homes and deprives us of our childhood."

I hope, that as you perform this work, the audience will listen to the words carefully. As Wilfred Owen, the English poet who was killed in World War I, wrote: My subject is war, and the pity of war. The Poetry is in the pity. All a poet can do today is warn."

With love and peace,

Robert Jager