This April, New Century Chamber Orchestra spotlights the work of three composers of the 20th and 21st centuries and their contrasting searches for peace.

Up-and-coming San Francisco-based composer Jungyoon Wie’s masterful A Prayer for Peace makes its West Coast debut in this program. A 2024 New Century co-commission with Boston’s A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra, the piece makes poignant use of repetition and variation to represent the composer’s emotional evolution in her journey as a Korean immigrant to the United States. Themes of identity, family, and personal story are often at the center of Wie’s compositional work.

“There are beautiful harmonies, but also very arresting emotions throughout the piece,” says Daniel Hope, Music Director and Concertmaster of New Century Chamber Orchestra. “Jungyoon has a very distinct voice, and we are excited to be working with her.” Wie echoes the sentiment. “I’m thrilled to be able to work with musicians locally,” she says. “I learn so much from attending the rehearsals in person and getting to know the group, and this really shapes the way I write music. I feel that personal connection is really important in my creative process.”

Opening the program, African-American composer Adolphus Hailstork’s joyful Sonata da Chiesa for strings invites religious meditation as it builds an opulent cathedral of sound in the style of a grand choral mass, appealing to God for peace and absolution.

Finally, the remarkable and intimate Metamorphosen—Richard Strauss’s late-in-life string masterpiece composed in the aftermath of WWII—stands undimmed as a memorial for the victims of war and as inspiration to rebuild after tragedy. The layered work, with its 23 individual “solo” parts for each string player, has long been considered one of the most brilliantly constructed pieces ever written for string orchestra. “There is no other piece like it,” says Hope. “The structure of Metamorphosen is unique – 23 solo string players. Each one has a voice. Each one is actually like an angel uttering a prayer – a prayer for destruction, a prayer for reconciliation, a prayer for peace. It’s one of the most haunting works of music I know.”