Riho Esko Maimets: “Sest tahan appi hüüda (For I Wish to Cry for Help, 2026, premiere) is one of several works that, for me, responds to a pervasive sense of malaise. This atmosphere of negativity, anger and profound disappointment as well as deep sadness is provoked by the apocalyptically barbaric, hypocritical, and bleak immorality that prevails in the world today. All sorts of facades have crumbled and I can’t help but try to incorporate, or at least grapple with, the starkness that surrounds me in my creative process.

I have observed that the initial impulses of my recent compositions are entwined with my feelings about the world. Frankly, these have proven to be either intensely sad or angry—feelings one tends to conceal, yet they strike me as an especially fertile ground for creative expression.”

The text from Estonian Lutheran Hymnal: 
Ei Jumal neid või jätta / God cannot forsake them

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Hugi Guðmundsson: “Three Marian Antiphons (2026, premiere) is a cycle of motets for double choir based on iconic Latin texts dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The work echoes the centuries-old tradition of polychoral singing. In the first two motets, the antiphonal structure is strictly maintained, with the two ensembles engaging in a formal call-and-response. However, in the final movement, this separation becomes slightly less clear as the choirs increasingly overlap. The main body of the work was composed during a residency at the Arvo Pärt Centre in Laulasmaa, Estonia, in late summer 2025, and completed in Copenhagen the following winter.”

I Hail, O Star of the ocean,
God’s own Mother blest,
ever sinless Virgin,
gate of heav’nly rest.
Taking that sweet Ave,
which from Gabriel came,
peace confirm within us,
changing Eve’s name.
Break the sinners’ fetters,
make our blindness day,
Chase all evils from us,
for all blessings pray.
Show thyself a Mother,
may the Word divine
born for us thine Infant
hear our prayers through thine.
Virgin all excelling,
mildest of the mild,
free from guilt preserve us
meek and undefiled.
Keep our life all spotless,
make our way secure
till we find in Jesus,
joy for evermore.
Praise to God the Father,
honor to the Son,
in the Holy Spirit,
be the glory one. Amen.

II Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia.
The Son you merited to bear, alleluia,
Has risen as he said, alleluia.
Pray to God for us, alleluia

III Mother of mercy, hail, O gentle Queen!
Our life, our sweetness, and our hope, all hail!
Children of Eve,
To thee we cry from our sad banishment;
To thee we send our sighs,
Weeping and mourning in this tearful vale.
Come, then, our Advocate;
Oh, turn on us those pitying eyes of thine:
And our long exile past,
Shew us at last
Jesus, of thy pure womb the fruit divine.
O Virgin Mary, mother blest!
O sweetest, gentlest, holiest!

Translation by Edward Caswall
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Song for All Beings (2026, premiere) for two choirs. Helena Tulve: “In our complex and increasingly tense times, when opposition and violence seep into our lives through every crack, I believe it is important to become aware of certain core values and inner tools to hold on to with all our strength, in order to stay present and keep our hearts open. 

Good stories are like an extension of the human heart, helping us maintain a strong and open inner structure even in times of catastrophe. I was drawn to an old Tibetan legend about the Shambhala warriors, retold in several versions by deep ecology advocate Joanna Macy. I used two different versions of the same legend, narrated by two vocal groups, which complement each other in certain details of expression and emphasize the living nature of storytelling.

Chorus: I have a story to tell you. Twelve centuries ago in Tibet a prophecy was made by a very learned being.

Soloists: It’s a timeless story from long ago and about to happen at the same time. That’s what they call a prophecy.

C: There comes a time when all life on Earth is in danger. In this time Barbarian powers have arisen.

S: Great powers have arisen.

Although they waste their wealth in preparations to annihilate each other, they have much in common: weapons of unfathomable devastation, and death, and technologies that lay waste to our world, that can destroy the world.

It is now, when the future of all beings hangs by the frailest of threads, that the kingdom of Shambhala emerges. In this time of great danger when the life of all beings hangs by the frailest of threads.

You cannot go there, for it is not a place. It lives in the heart-minds of the Shambhala warriors.

You cannot go there. It’s not a place. It exists in the hearts and minds of the Shambhala warriors.

But you cannot recognize a Shambhala warrior by sight, for there is no uniform or insignia. There are no banners. And there are no barricades on which to climb, from which to threaten the enemy or behind which they can rest and regroup, for the Shambhala warriors have no land of their own. They don’t have any home turf. Always they move on the terrain of the barbarians themselves. Forever and always they must negotiate their way across the terrain of the barbarian powers.

Now there comes the time when great courage is required of the Shambhala warriors, moral and physical courage, for they must go into the very heart of the barbarian power to dismantle the weapons.

The Shambhala warriors know they can do this, – this is very important to remember! – because the weapons are manomaya, mind-made. Made by the human mind. So they can be unmade by the human mind!

The Shambhala warriors know that the dangers that threaten life on Earth do not come from evil deities or extraterrestrial powers – no!

That the disasters that are threatening us and unfolding are not coming even by an unchangeable, inexorable fate, or some unstoppable preordained force – no!

They arise from our own choices and relationships, from our priorities and our habits of mind or our fears and our fears of facing our fear, from our ways of seeing and understanding our world.

So, now, the Shambhala warriors must go into training. Now is the time when the Shambhala warriors go into training.

How do they train?

They train in the use of two weapons.

What are they?

The weapons are compassion and insight. Both are necessary, one by itself is not enough.

One is compassion and the other is insight into the radical interdependence of all phenomena, and you need both.

We need this first one, because it provides us the fuel, it moves us out to act on behalf of other beings.

You need the compassion, its fierce fire, the motive force to move you out where you need to go to do what you need to do. And what it boils down to, is not being afraid of the suffering of our world or of yourself. Because when you’re not afraid of the suffering then nothing can stop you.

But by itself it can burn us out. But by itself, oh, that can burn you out, it is so hot.

So we need the second as well, which is insight into the dependent co-arising of all things, into the mutual belonging of everything that is interwoven as it is in the web of life.

And so you need the other as well. You need the wisdom, understanding, the insight into the interwovenness of all things. How all things flow and lean on each other and are conditioned by each other and fed by each other.

It lets us see that the battle is not between good people and bad people, for the line between good and evil runs through every human heart.

This is very important because that reminds us that this is never a fight between the good guys and the bad guys, but the line between good and evil runs through the landscape of every human heart.

And we know, the web of life that brings us forward connects us with all things. We realize that as we are so interwoven in the web of life, even the smallest act with pure motivation has repercussions through that web, bringing consequences we cannot measure or even see.

And you know that even the smallest act with clear heart and good intention for all beings makes ripples in that web of life causing things to arise and occur beyond your imagination.

But then, coming down to it, that can seem a bit abstract – it’s cool. So you need the compassion. But insight alone can seem too cool to keep us going. So we need as well the heat of compassion, our openness to the world’s pain.

Both weapons or tools are necessary to the Shambhala warrior.

You need them both – the heat of compassion and the understanding of our interexistence. 

This is what we are made of.

This is what we are being reminded of.

(Joanna Macy, after teachings of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche)

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