Our Inspiration
In 2001, Chicago’s WFMT aired “War Letters,” an award-winning documentary of letters written by service members read by college-age theater and acting majors and narrated by their station’s team as well as by the late Chicago author and journalist Studs Terkel. The letters for this program were subsequently donated by the station to the Pritzker Military Museum. This project honored service members and their families and has been presented by the station for Memorial Day.
The retired general manager of WFMT, Steve Robinson, who produced the original project, was inspired by the idea to set the most moving portions of the letters to music. He reached out to pianist Ian Gindes with the suggestion of commissioning a new work for piano and voice. Ian and Steve connected with Patrick Zimmerli and Mirabelle Ordinaire to make this composition a reality. Together, they selected letters and writings from the collections at the Pritzker Military Museum as well as a few others collected from the works of Alan Seeger and from the Museum of the American Revolution.
“A grand musical tapestry of American history, hope, faith, aspiration, despair and optimism in time of war.”
John von Rhein,
former longtime classical music critic of the Chicago