Julia Perry was born in Lexington, Kentucky, on March 25, 1924, and died in Akron, Ohio, on April 24, 1979. The Jannina Norpoth arrangement of Perry’s Ye, Who Seek the Truth is scored for strings and harp. Approximate performance time is four minutes.

The American composer Julia Perry attended the Westminster Choir College, the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, and the Juilliard School of Music. Perry studied with Luigi Dallapiccola both in the US and Italy, and with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. The winner of numerous grants and awards, Julia Perry was a prolific composer, whose works span a wide variety of instrumental and vocal genres, including several symphonies and operas. When the New York Philharmonic and conductor William Steinberg played Julia Perry’s Short Piece for Orchestra in 1965, it marked the first time in the Orchestra’s history that it performed a work by an African American woman.

Julia Perry’s eloquent anthem, Ye Who Seek the Truth, features text and music by the composer. Originally scored for tenor, mixed choir, and organ, the work is heard in these concerts in an arrangement for strings and harp by Jannina Norpoth.