Purpose
The purpose of the St. Louis Peace Choir is to create harmony.
Active Pacifism
It is possible to use songs and stories to help keep a society in balance and to help protect it from irrational hatreds and fears. The St. Louis Peace Choir is committed to such Active Pacifism.
Peace Song Repository
All of the scores and recordings of the St. Louis Peace Choir are put into the public domain and housed in our REPOSITORY. They may be freely copied and used by other choirs, classrooms, and singers.
If you would like to contribute a copyright-free choral song that peace choirs might find useful, please contact us (sing@STLpeacechoir.org).
Calendar
We meet on the 3rd Sunday of each month:
December 17, 2023
January 21, 2024
February 18, 2024
March 17, 2024
April 21, 2024
May 19, 2024
June 16, 2024
July 21, 2024
August 18, 2024
September 15, 2024
October 20, 2024
November 17, 2024
December 15, 2024
Funding
None. The St. Louis Peace Choir is a democracy of volunteers. Our expenses are minimal (music sheets, website). We have no owners, no property, no legal name, no bank account. Although we bring a donation box to our monthly gatherings, its total contents are given to the First Unitarian Church as a good-will offering to help defray the building-use costs that we incur.
History
For nearly 2 decades a group of St. Louis peace advocates used to meet every Sunday evening on the steps of St. Louis University’s “College Church” (St. Francis Xavier) at Grand and Lindell. Regardless of the weather, they’d stand outside in a candlelight “peace vigil” holding banners and signs supporting peace as the heavy traffic slowly inched to-and-from the Grand Center entertainment venues.
Mary Wuller and her friends began these weekly gatherings in reaction to the climate of hate and vengeance that the 9-11 tragedy had whipped-up.
When Secretary Michael later joined the group, he began creating short egalitarian songs for the group to sing in unison at the end of their half-hour vigils. At first the song-sheets were sealed in plastic to protect them from the rain and snow. Later they were bound into booklets with the title: “St. Louis Peace Choir”. That’s how the peace choir got its start. The peace vigils ended several years later with the Covid-19 virus. Fortunately those songs of hope and peace continue to be freely downloaded by singers and choral groups around the world.