Meditations on an American Hymn – David Evan Thomas

Composer: David Evan Thomas Instrumentation: solo piano Duration: approx. 10 minutes Date Written:  2020 Program Note: Meditations on an American Hymn was composed in February 2020 for my friend Sonja Thompson. I had long wanted to write a piano work that would be useful as service music and attractive as a piece of piano music. Sonja’s beautiful playing and keen musicianship has been an inspiration to me for many years, beginning with the premiere of Blessings: 5 Poems of James Wright, which she gave with Vern Sutton in 2000. I wrote  Meditations as the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic began to spread. As the United States suffered under the dual handicaps of incapable leadership and novel virology, I sought a focus that was positive in both emotional and civic senses. Katharine Lee Bates (1859 –1929) wrote the poem “Pikes Peak” after visiting Colorado in 1893. It was published in the Fourth of July edition of The Congregationalist in 1895. Here are several versions of the text. Many composers