Markku Klami's into the deep peace released on Audite chamber choir's album Voices of Earth

Released on 24 May 2026 by Alba Records, Voices of Earth is the new album by Audite Chamber Choir, conducted by choir's former artistic director Jani Sivén. The album features six environmentally themed works commissioned for the choir’s 30th anniversary season, exploring the relationship between humanity and nature from a wide range of perspectives. The recording is available both as a CD and on major streaming platforms.

A particularly distinctive aspect of the album is that the featured composers are all singers within the choir itself: Alex Freeman, Anna Huuskonen, Markku Klami, Finn Shields, and Matthew Whittall. The album also includes a work by the choir’s former artistic director, Jani Sivén.

Klami's contribution to the album, into the deep peace, is written for mixed choir and draws its inspiration from the ancient trees of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. The work is based on selections from John Muir’s travel memoir My First Summer in the Sierra and was commissioned by Audite Chamber Choir for its 30th anniversary.

The piece was inspired in part by Klami's memories of his honeymoon trip with his wife to California and Nevada in 2018, particularly a visit to the Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park. Encountering the giant sequoias — among the oldest and largest living trees on Earth — left a profound impression on Klami. For him, standing among these ancient giants, some over 3,000 years old, created an overwhelming sense of timelessness, humility and peace.

The title into the deep peace is derived from a passage in Muir’s diary dated 11 July 1869: “Sauntered up the meadow about sundown, out of sight of camp and sheep and all human mark, into the deep peace of the solemn old woods…”

The work is dedicated to Audite Chamber Choir and Jani Sivén.

Recording, editing, mastering and producing: Marion Schwebel

Album cover photo: Jan Viljanen / Just Visual

Album cover design: Pauliina Ilonoja