The Name that Never Dies_New Year's Eve Peace Concert 2022

Kent Tritle conducting the Cathedral Choir
Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in NYC
Dec. 31st 2022
"The Name that Never Dies" is the turning point of this year's musical offerings." Ketn Tritle
6th century B.C.
From TAITTĪRI-YA UPANISHAD
Book 3 Part 10 Verse 6
THE NAME THAT NEVER DIES
O wonderful! O wonderful! O wonderful!
Be the bread! Be the bread! Be the bread! Take the bread! Take the bread! Take the bread!
My name never dies, never dies, never dies!
I was born first in the first of the worlds, earlier than the gods, in the belly of what has no death!
Whoever gives me away has helped me most!
I, who am bread, eat the eater of bread!
I have conquered this world! He who knows this shines like the sun. Such are the laws of the mystery!
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The Cathedral's New Years Eve Concert of Peace was founded by Leonard Bernstein in 1984, and has become an annual staple for New York music-lovers, a celebration of joy and inspiration, a time to gather in musical prayer for a better world. For the first time, the in person Concert for Peace was available to audiences world-wide, as a live-streaming event.
Composer Wang Jie:
During the worst time of the pandemic, I wondered whether ten thousand simultaneous deaths would generate enough sound waves to penetrate the depth of our universe. I listened to the silence...I watched the sound waves transforming into a blackhole. What went in did not come out.
It was also during the pandemic, but much later, I listened again. This time, I heard the simultaneous cries of births. How come I never heard the glorious and golden rays of lives before the blackhole? The order of these sound events, as it happened in my mind, suggests that births may in fact be rebirth. The beginning of life is a primal scream that called out for music and thus it was born.