"Fred Kohn plays with a lovely, warm singing tone, and his pieces have a gentle serenity that cannot fail to bring much comfort and relaxation to his listeners. This is a rare quality in the music that is being written these days." -Edmond Mignon, former pianist with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra

I wrote the music for Peaceful Home over a period of about half a year when I was undergoing a crisis of faith and reevaluating the things that I though gave my life meaning. I spent a number of years in a very conservative Christian church despite the fact that, like most artists I suppose, I am basically not very conservative. At a certain point I could no longer deny that I was kidding myself, and this left a spiritual vacuum which required a period of time to fill. During this time a theme that came up over and over again was family. Thus many of the pieces have titles based on my family: I was born and grew up in Tennessee, Harold is my father's name, Nancy is my wife, Chad is my son, and Molly and Kalayo are are the family dogs. The titles of the other pieces reflect spiritual themes. The Donkey was inspired by the poem of the same name by Christian writer G. K. Chesterton. On The Willows reflects my exodus from church music, being based on Psalm 137:2- "We put away our lyres, hanging them on the branches of the willow trees."

The title for Peaceful Home came about in an interesting way. That particular piece is one of the simplest that I had written harmonically and rhythmically, and there wasn't much in it that was inspiring a title for me. So I asked my wife what she thought it would be named. She gave me two possibilities, one of which was Peaceful Home. I immediately settled on that as the name. After I made that decision Nancy told me that she thought all along that is what it should be named. She only gave me two options because she didn't want to presume to name my piece for me. -Fred Kohn

THE DONKEY
G.K. Chesterton

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.