About

For Our Common Home

oratorio for ecojustice, inspired by Laudato Si'

ARTICLE

Now playing: Pope Francis' ecological encyclical set to music. Boston composer's Laudato Si' oratorio is 'a call to action through music'

For Our Common Home
an oratorio for ecojustice, inspired by Laudato Si’
composed by Linda J. Chase

Laudato Si’, an encyclical issued by Pope Francis in 2015 calls on humanity to acknowledge the urgency of the human caused environmental crisis, and to work towards building a more just and sustainable world. Addressing not only people of faith, but everyone on earth, Laudato Si’ challenges us to engage in new dialogue and take action. Chase’s new oratorio, For Our Common Home interprets the text as a call to action through music.

In collaboration with world renown theologian and author Harvey Cox, Boston based composer, flutist and professor, Linda J. Chase has composed a 75 minute, 18 movement genre–crossing oratorio for choir, soloists, and chamber ensemble (string octet, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, trumpet, flugelhorn, percussion and piano). In addition to the orchestral and choral score, ten songs from the oratorio will be arranged for community singing and assembled into a songbook for piano or guitar and voices. After each performance, the audience will be invited to participate in a post-concert dialogue to explore ways their community can respond.

“Our goal is not to amass information or to satisfy curiosity, but rather to become painfully aware to dare to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering and thus to discover what each of us can do about it.”

(Pope Francis)

DONATE

We are looking for partners to help bring this music to life by supporting a recording with choir and chamber orchestra and publishing the score and songbook. If you believe in the power of music to heal and inspire, please consider a donation to advance our work. Every donation of any amount makes a difference.

FIND OUT MORE

FOR MORE INFORMATION OR INTEREST IN SUPPORTING THIS PROJECT, PLEASE CONTACT:

LINDA J. CHASE lchase@berklee.edu

OR SUBSCRIBE HERE

“A true ecological approach … must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment,

so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.”