Ode to Divine Joy

An Offering of Sacred Music in Honor of the World-Blessing Work of Avatar Adi Da Samraj

On November 2, 2013, the eve of the seventy-fourth anniversary of Avatar Adi Da’s Birth, a live concert was held to celebrate His Eternal Blessing of all.

The rendition of the Ode to Divine Joy performed during that occasion at the Mountain Of Attention Sanctuary (Northern California) is a unique fusion of two performances: the live performance and a 1990 studio recording played as accompaniment. This unique amalgam of both studio and live performances of Ode to Divine Joy, as well as all of the other pieces of the live concert included on this CD, are offered in the spirit of celebration and gratitude.

About the Ode to Divine Joy Live Concert

A collaboration of world-class musicians, all inspired by Adi Da Samraj to create music that invokes ecstasy. All of the pieces of this 2013 concert—which range from the world’s great instrumental classics, to arias, to gospel and Adidam devotional favorites—are offered in deepest heart-gratitude for Avatar Adi Da’s Blessing.

The title piece of this CD, Ode to Divine Joy, is adapted from the final movement of one of Beethoven’s best-loved classics, his Ninth Symphony. This choral symphony is one of the most-played works in the world, and is considered by many to be the best piece of music ever written. Composed near the end of his life, when Beethoven was almost completely deaf, the piece is an inspiring demonstration of personal transcendence and overcoming on the part of its composer. But it is also much more. Beethoven specifically intended this, his last complete symphony, to stand as a call to universal harmony. Thus—to use terminology that the World-Friend, Adi Da Samraj, has given since—the Ode to Joy was created as a calling to cooperation, tolerance, and peace.

Included in the original lyrics of the final movement, which Beethoven adapted from a poem by Friedrich Schiller, are the impassioned words:

Joy, beautiful spark of the divinity . . .
We enter your sanctuary, burning with fervor . . .
Your magic brings together
what custom has sternly divided.

As part of his musical attempt to “bring together what custom has sternly divided”, Beethoven wrote some of the Ode in the “a la Turk” style, incorporating phrasing inspired by the music of Islamic Turks. Thus, in its musical form and in its lyrics, the Ode to Joy intentionally transcends cultural boundaries. In the nearly two hundred years since its original performance, the piece has touched the lives of people around the world, becoming an international anthem of hope.

In 1990, the Ode was adapted for performance as an expression of appreciation for the Spiritual Blessing-Work of Adi Da Samraj. Platinum-selling composer Ray Lynch arranged the music for the Adidam Choir performing this new interpretation, and opera aficionado Crane Kirkbride adapted the lyrics. Since its unveiling twenty-three years ago, Adidam’s Ode to Divine Joy has become a treasured expression of gratitude for Adi Da’s work of World-Blessing and His calling for the recognition of the prior unity of all humankind.