Some people respond to horror and tragedy by turning to music. To others, pain is best dealt with in silence. This spring, as the US and the UK marched off to a war opposed by a large percentage of the public, John Woolrich asked several prominent composers to do what composers so rarely do these days: write a piece in direct response to current events. “What should we sing in the dark times? There are as many musical reactions to public events as there are composers… ranging through music of anger, defiance, loss, remembrance, near silence, transcendence, nostalgia and mourning.”