From the liner notes of the album:

The struggle is protracted, and we can never lose sight of our goals in the process.

Mao Tsetung quotes an old Chinese fable: "An old man lived in northern China long, long ago. He was known as the Foolish Old Man of North Mountain. His house faced south, and beyond his doorway stood the two great peaks, Taihang and Wangwu, obstructing the way. With great determination, he led his sons in digging up these mountains, hoe in hand. Another greybeard, known as the Wise Old Man, saw them and said derisively, 'How silly of you to do this. It is quite impossible for you few to dig up these two huge mountains.' The Foolish Old Man replied, 'When I die, my sons will carry on; when they die, there will be my grandsons, and then their sons and grandsons, and so on into infinity. High as they are, the mountains cannot grow any higher, and with every bit we dig, they will be that much lower. Why can't we clear them away?' Having refuted the Wise Old Man's wrong view, he went on digging every day, unshaken in his conviction. God was moved by this, and he sent down two angels, who carried the mountains away on their backs.

“Today, two big mountains lie like a dead weight on the Chinese people. One is imperialism, the other is feudalism. The Chinese Communist Party has long made up its mind to dig them up. We must persevere and work unceasingly, and we, too, will touch God's heart. Our God is none other than the masses of the Chinese people. If they stand up and dig together with us, why can't these two mountains be cleared away?"

From the commissioner, conductor Raoul Carlo F. Angangco:

As a musician navigating the Philippine choral scene since my elementary school days, I’ve developed a profound curiosity for the concept of Filipino identity through the groups I have worked/sung with, and, more so, the audiences and communities I have come to know through choral singing: “Of what do Filipino choristers sing about? What do choral audiences seek to hear, and experience, and learn by listening? Who do we aim to serve, and how can this communal act of music-making be of service?” …

Through this project, I have sought to gain more nuanced insights on the concept of Filipino identity through the compositional voices of four of the most prominent US-based Filipino composers today: Robin Estrada, Nilo Alcala, GP Eleria, and Saunder Choi. Having grown up and studied in the Philippines before pursuing higher education and finally planting themselves in the US, these four are among the most sought-after and commissioned names belonging to the current generation of Filipino composers, with both Philippine and international ensembles performing their works around the world. Personally, their music served as a highly influential force in my upbringing as a chorister and conductor in the Philippines.

The composers were commissioned to write choral works that explore the Filipino national identity/cultural experience in the context of the past (where we came from), present (where we are as a nation and as a people today, in any part of the world), and future (where we see it going or what we might hope for the country in the near or distant future). While each of these composers naturally possess their individual, unique compositional styles, they were all encouraged to freely use, explore, and realize in their works any Filipino traditions, aesthetics, languages, literature, faith, socio-political commentary, and any other cultural phenomenon either pre-colonial or inherited.

Read more about this project here.

From the composer:

Constancio de Guzman’s Bayan Ko (My Homeland) remains one of the most cherished patriotic songs in the Filipino consciousness. Its text is rich in imagery and evokes a wide spectrum of emotion - from the anguish of opression to the hope born of steadfast resolve. Bayan Ko 2.0 is my personal attempt to translate these sentiments into sound through word painting and the use of contemporary textures and harmonies. I invite the listener to join me on this intimate aural journey from despair to hope.

There is more love | African American hymn

Hold On | Heidi Ann Wilson

We get there together | Joshua H. Blaine

From an interview with Chorus America:

… I use my voice as a weapon of mass connection…I'd always been doing community sings and gatherings, and people ask me, “What do I have to do in order to be able to sing with you?” And I say, “Are ya breathin'? Good. That's the only qualification.” And we need that so much. In my talk, I'll be talking a lot about why we need to share each other's music and how important that really, really is, because of what's happening, because of this huge movement in choral music that we should only sing music in our own culture. Wrong. Poison.

We need to talk about this and to understand where this is actually coming from. So I'm talking about how we can do that and how we can connect to each other in that way. It is a major part of my work right now because I'm working with choirs all over the country in all different circumstances, and people are freaking out. It's one of those things where you think it's coming from one place, but really, it's fed by the opposite. It's like when people say,” I don't see color.” And I'm saying, “I know what you think you're saying, but what you're saying is that you don't see me. You think that you're actually in solidarity with me by saying you don't see color, but really, you're saying the opposite.” We have a lot of things like that in our in our culture where people think they're doing one thing, but really, the result of it has the opposite reaction.

The main crux is, you have to sing the songs from the point of view of not being White, or Black, or Latino, or whatever, but from being a human being. And how do you connect in those songs? With spirituals, you cannot sing about my ancestors' journey. But you can sing about your ancestors' journey. Unless you are a First Nations or Native American person, you are a descendant of immigrants, which means that your grandma and your great, or your great-great- great, made a really difficult journey in order for us to be able to sit here. So when you sing spirituals or whatever it is, what was the journey of your ancestors? You can sing about that because you're a human being. And these songs come from the desire to be seen as a real person. That's what the songs are about.

Read the full interview here.

From the liner notes of the album:

This is another of the first songs we wrote. It only touched on our people's plight and experiences in this country. We've heard that sisters and brothers in Hawaii and other places have added verses to it. We say right on—it is your song.