Today on the Second Sunday of Lent, the LCH choir will debut a newly-composed Psalm 22 by composer Forrest Pierce, a friend of Miguel Felipe’s. From today’s Sunday bulletin:

Forrest Pierce’s music is not new to LCH audiences; we heard a movement of his il Cantico del Sole (2011) last September, and a psalm setting for Christmas Eve 2011. Today’s psalm is his second in an ongoing series of psalms for LCH. This work, however, has an especially important significance. Tomorrow, March 5th, Forrest and his wife, Jaci, will formally and legally take custody of their newly adopted son, Riyad Pierce, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city. Forrest found this text to be “especially poignant” when composing and those to use an Ethiopian pentatonic mode in setting these words of Psalm 22. Today’s music is offered “in honor of Riyad Pierce, and the Christians of Addis Ababa.”

The entire setting is unaccompanied, and has a chant-like antiphon on “All the ends of the earth remember and turn to the Lord.” Here’s the rest of the text:

You who fear the Lord, give praise! All you of Jacob’s line, give glory.
Stand in awe of the Lord, all you offspring of Israel.
For the Lord does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty;
neither is the Lord’s face hidden from them;
but when they cry out, the Lord hears them.

From you comes my praise in the great assembly;
I will perform my vows in the sight of those who fear the Lord.
The poor shall eat and be satisfied,
May your hearts live forever!