for SATB divisi chorus, unaccompanied

text by Madeleine L’Engle

Music from Duke Chapel Series
MorningStar Music, 50-2149

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Madeleine L’Engle (1918–2007) was an award-winning writer of poetry, non-fiction, and fiction. She is perhaps best known for her young adult novel A Wrinkle in Time, which won a Newberry Medal, and its several sequels. L’Engle wrote and frequently spoke about the relationship between science, art, faith, and human life. Her poem "Ready for Silence" comes from The Weather of the Heart (1978), one of several collections of her sacred poetry.

This driving, rhythmic composition captures the eschatological anxiety and hope of L’Engle’s poem. Near the conclusion of the work, a soprano descant echoes VENI, EMMANUEL, pointing to the usefulness of this setting in Advent or on Christ the King Sunday.

For the Duke University Chapel Schola Cantorum, and their performance at the 2025 ACDA national conference.