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The Seal Lullaby Eric Whitacre (1970 – )
Grammy®-award winning composer and conductor Eric Whitacre is one of the most
popular musicians of our time. His concert music has been performed throughout the
world by millions of amateur and professional musicians alike, while his ground-breaking
Virtual Choirs have united singers from over 120 different countries. A graduate of the
Juilliard School of Music, Eric currently holds the position of Artist in Residence with
the Los Angeles Master Chorale, having completed a five-year term as Composer-in-
Residence at the University of Cambridge, UK.

“The Seal Lullaby” is a poem by Rudyard Kipling. Whitacre originally composed this
setting in 2004 for a proposed animated film that was never made; but a few years later,
the Towne Singers commissioned this arrangement.

Oh! Hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o’er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow;
Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
Asleep in the arms of the slow swinging seas.
- Rudyard Kipling, from the story “The White Seal,” published in The Jungle Book.

The Peace of Wild Things (from The Great Trees) Gwyneth Walker (1947 – )
A composer since age two, Gwyneth Walker has always placed great value on active
collaboration with musicians. Over the decades, she has traveled to many states to work
with instrumental and choral ensembles, soloists, and educational institutions as they
rehearse and perform her music. A number of these visits have developed into ongoing
relationships. In 2018, Walker was named Composer-in-Residence for the Great Lakes
Chamber Orchestra in Petoskey, Michigan. A former faculty member at Oberlin College
Conservatory, Walker resigned in 1982 to pursue a career as a full-time composer.

The Great Trees consists of five pieces, each one a setting of a poem by Wendell Berry
(1934 - ). The poetry and music focus on the beauty and spirituality of nature. “The Peace
of Wild Things” is the first song in the collection.

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