"Song and Prayer: In Memoriam" piece for voice, children's chorus, and piano.

For voice, children's chorus and piano. Note: there are no blood & gore type images--"PG-13" stylized footage.

During the conflict in the former Yugoslavia from 1991-1996, over 2 million people were displaced from their homes, more than 100,000 people were killed, and over 30,000 were "disappeared" and remain unaccounted for to this day.

According to the Sarajevo-based Research and Documentation Centre, over 10% of these still unaccounted disappeared were children at the time, the majority of whom were between the ages of 15-18 when they vanished--with some only a few days old.

As of today, only one child of the 3,372 documented missing children from this conflict in the Balkans has been found alive. Other names have recently been deleted from the missing children's list after their bodies were located in mass graves. The majority of the disappeared children were born in the areas of Srebrenica and Sarajevo. (see http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/hope-fades-for-lost-children-of-bosni...)

A full accounting may never be possible, and most of the criminals behind the children's fate have not been brought to justice, according to a UN report released in Oct 2010. (see http://www.scribd.com/doc/43845285/TRIAL-Report-on-Bosnia-Herzegovina-Submitt...).

According to the Canadian International Development Agency, in the last decade, two million children have died in wars, six million children have been disabled, 12 million children have been left homeless, and one million children have been orphaned. This work was composed during Balkans war, but remains tragically relevant: there are more than 30 wars going on in the world today--and nearly half a million girls and boys, between 7 and 18 years old, are soldiers fighting in armed conflicts in 50 countries throughout Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. (see http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/acdi-cida/acdi-cida.nsf/eng/REN-218125511-PX7)

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This work takes an experimental approach—an assemblage of children's voices, some solo, some singing in canons, with excerpts of original piano music, and sections from a piano prelude by Rachmaninoff.

Landscape video excerpt from "Mitrovica: North and South (2005) " http://www.archive.org/details/mitrovica. Used under creative commons license.

"Song and Prayer: In Memoriam" piece for voice, children's chorus, and piano © (P) 1993 Paul Lawrence All rights reserved

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Song and Prayer
• piano
• choir
• singing
• concert
• memoriam
• children
• experimental
• peace
• war
• disappeared
• missing
• sacrifice
• barren
• landscape