Judith Shatin

Mixed Chorus (SATB) with Brass Quintet and Timpani

Program Note from the composer:

We Hold These Truths (1992), is a setting of a large portion of the Declaration of Independence and is scored for chorus, brass quintet and timpani, also available for chorus and piano. Commissioned by the University of Virginia for the celebration of Jefferson’s 250th birthday on April 13, 1993, it was premiered on the Lawn of the University y Coro Virginia, drawn from the University Singers, directed by Donald Loach, together with tympanist Conrad Alexander and the US Army Brass Quintet following Mikhail Gorbachev’s keynote address. As a Professor of Music at the university founded by Jefferson, I was drawn to set portions of this key document, drafted by Jefferson. I was inspired by the passion, contemporary resonance and power of its revolutionary aspects. I composed this piece during a residency at MacDowell, itself a place where artists are free to exercise their creative imaginations. 

Celebrating the upcoming 50th anniversary of the signing Jefferson wrote: "May it be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of mankind. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion…the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”

We Hold These Truths was revised in 2026 for the University Singers’ America 250 concert at the University of Virginia, where it was conducted by Michael Slon. -JS