Digital Single: I Believe in the Prince of Peace, Credo No. 5

Digital Single: I Believe in the Prince of Peace, Credo No. 5

$2.00

The Los Angeles Master Chorale under Grant Gershon with piano soloist Lara Downes revived Bonds’ complete Credo in April 2024 at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, a historic full performance of a 20th century American masterwork that is as timeless as it is timely. This release celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day by honoring Dr. King’s commitment to the advancement of  peace and nonviolent activism, as expressed in his own words: "It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it." 

On May 21 of 1972, the Los Angeles Philharmonic gave a performance of excerpts from the Credo, an epic work for choir and orchestra by Margaret Bonds. She never got to hear that historic performance - she had died four weeks earlier, just after her 59th birthday.  Her inspiration for this massive work, which she composed in the mid 1960’s, was the 1904 prose poem Credo by the Black sociologist, historian and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois, who dared to imagine a world that defied the realities of Jim Crow America. In his poem, he stated his belief that all people deserve "the space to stretch their arms and their souls; the right to breathe and the right to vote, the freedom to choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine and ride on the railroads, uncursed by color; thinking, dreaming, working as they will." Decades later, his words resonated with Bonds as violence raged and fires burned across America, as the Civil Rights movement fought on for the promise of freedom and equality, still unfulfilled, but still worth believing in. 

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