Sung by Peregrine Medieval Vocal Ensemble, Artists-in-Residence at St. Mark's Cathedral, Seattle, and favorites at the cathedral's New Year's Eve labyrinth walk.

This album focuses on wisdom and compassion as they are expressed in the Christian tradition and the Gregorian chant repertoire.   In Christianity the icon of compassion is Mary, who made the choice to open herself, taking on the difficulty of birth, the challenges of nurturance, and the heartache of profound loss, so that a higher order of compassion could be available to the world. Divine wisdom (in Greek, Sophia) a powerful presence in Eastern Christianity. In the West, the fertile soil of monastic spirituality, out of which Gregorian chant springs, is in its own way a repository of the wisdom of the heart, the wisdom of contemplation.

The fruit of this union between Wisdom and Compassion is selfless love, known in the Christian tradition as Agape or Caritas: a clear-eyed, completely honest sense of the Spirit of Christ, embracing and transforming the humanity in our hearts and in the hearts of all those we encounter. And this love leads in turn to the action of making peace. As in the time of the Psalmist, Jerusalem remains today the most thorny, difficult and vivid image of the challenges of peace.  This ancient city symbolizes both the longing in our own hearts for connection and the sharp hard stones that stand in our way. And so we conclude with chants for the peace of Jerusalem.

Peregrine explores the Gregorian chant repertoire from liturgical, historical, interfaith, and contemplative perspectives, and has presented chant in educational settings, church services, multifaith gatherings, and meditation events.

As a group our work is both meditative and collaborative. We believe entirely in the process of singing together, feeling our way to the truth of each chant through experimentation, dialog, and listening. As part of cultivating spontaneity in our singing, we explore improvisation in the singing of Psalms. Using medieval church modes, we take turns at rendering the Psalm texts in ways that are colored with our individual understandings and energies. We also make use of both polyphony and harp accompaniment to color and enrich the simplicity of the chant. These experiments carry forward the great medieval music traditions of improvisation and elaboration.