Once upon a Christmastime, singing stopped a war. While it might sound like the stuff of Christmas miracles, it’s a true story – one that inspired Vanguard Milwaukee’s All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914 .

It was Christmas Eve, 1914, in the trenches of World War I. Across No Man’s Land, British soldiers heard the voices of the enemy singing “Stille Nacht” (“Silent Night”). Soon followed white flags – a Christmas truce.

On Christmas Day, German and British soldiers laid down their arms, gathering peacefully, even celebrating, in the space between trenches.

This chorale piece, written by Peter Rothstein with vocal arrangements by Erick Lichte and Timothy C. Takash, made its debut on Minnesota Public Radio in 2007, then evolved to a staged production. The docu-musical is now on it

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