'Good Morning Good People!', an original work by Australian composer, Peter Kearney, is a cycle of seventeen songs with musical and narrative links. It tells in a deep yet entertaining way the life of St Francis of Assisi.

After introductory music and 'The Welcome Song', we hear of the lively youth, his ideals, his imprisonment following capture in a local war. 'The Changes Song' tells of depression following his release, his solitary searching for meaning. Then, the challenge and discovery of God through an encounter with a leper in 'The Leper's Song'.

His embracing of the leper leads on to the adoption of a radically simple lifestyle, symbolised in his betrothal to the 'Lady Poverty'. He discovers his mission to bring news of God's Kingdom to the people. This is announced with energy and joy in the song 'Good Morning Good People!'. Others are inspired to join him in his way of life. The first half closes with 'The Mountain Song'. Francis and his brothers are lifted up in their newfound love of God.

An important theme of the second half is the tension Francis feels between 'Mountain' (the joys of solitude and contemplation) and 'Valley' (active involvement in ordinary life). Unable to decide what is his way, Francis trusts the decision to the prayers and discernment of Clare. The issue and the special relationship between them is explored in a song that Clare sings to Francis.

Directed to the Valley, Francis sings farewell to Sister Bird ('bird of my soul') and goes down to the troubled world of the Valley People, entering into dialogue with them in 'The Circle Song'. He comes up against desperate, hard-headed, hard-hearted forces in 'The Wolf of Gubbio' and 'The Shadow song'. Troubles follow from the rapid growth of the Order.

Eventually, 'wounded and weary' he follows the path of suffering to the mountain of 'La Verna' where the experience manifested in the stigmata takes place. The account of his final months is interwoven with the 'Canticle of the Sun' and a reprise of 'Good Morning Good People!'

PART TWO
8. The Valley People
9. Clare's Song
10. Sister Bird
11. The Minstrels of God (Circle Song)
12. The Wolf Of Gubbio
13. Make Me An Instrument
14. The Shadow Song
15. La Verna (The wounds of Christ)
16. Canticle Of The Sun (Death)
17. Good Morning Good People! (The dance goes on)

It began with reading a book from Basildon town library - 'In The Steps of St Francis' by Ernest Raymond which led me to read other books including a biography by Paul Sabatier which made a deep impression. That was in 1970 while I was living in England, having travelled from Australia two years earlier.

The greeting of St. Francis: "buono giorno buono gente!" inspired the title song. Later came the idea of writing more songs to tell the whole story. I didn't start with a whole conception. The image of an archaeological excavation seems more appropriate; the shape of the whole only emerged as I dug here and there on different sides of a large buried object. The story of Francis was already known, but I had to discover my own approach to this story, my own selection of events, personalities, words and symbols. From the start, my approach to Francis was personal and introspective, but expressed in universal terms which would, hopefully, make it accessible and relevant to others.

When I first discovered Francis and became so entranced by him, the initial appeal was partly the romance and exhilarating freedom of his life. These aspects found expression in the earliest songs, 'Good Morning Good People!' and 'Francis and the Lady Poverty'. Later I tuned in to some of the difficult changes Francis went through. Though he was a very different personality to me I found connections and parallels that led me to continue this large scale work.

The scale of the project led to a change in my approach to songwriting. The individual songs for GMGP were written very slowly. Other 'one-off' songs were usually conceived and created in a short burst of energy but with the GMGP songs, I'd often come up with a bit of a song that had promise, which seemed 'right', then get stuck and have to leave it aside for weeks or months or years till I could take it further. Patience was needed and new skills. I found the emerging songs were longer and more complex than usual and I soon realised my 'Francis' piece wasn't going to be anything like 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat' but rather, a slowly, deeply unfolding, reflective piece.

My life moved into the 'Valley' through marriage, parenting and full-time work in a school for maladjusted children, 1975-1979. During this period, I worked on little else, creatively, except 'Good Morning Good People!'. Among the songs to come out of this period were 'Sister Bird', 'The Circle Song' and 'Changes'.

The nature of the 'drama' underlying GMGP is rather symbolic and abstract. I've passed over opportunities for more nitty-gritty, flesh and blood drama.. eg. the conflict between Francis and his father, the camaraderie and conflict within the Franciscan Order, many colourful episodes in the life of Francis. Instead I've looked for essential moments and underlying patterns. The interplay and interdependence of opposites is important: light and dark, beauty and ugliness, success and failure, mountain and valley, cave and town-square, animus and anima, death and resurrection. There is a strong sense of the cyclical, seasonal nature of life - his and ours.

But beyond symbolism, Francis is Francis- an historical figure, a great Christian saint. In writing GMGP, I had to grapple with his 12th Century Christian spirituality. Often I felt uncomfortable with the language and imagery used by his biographers and Francis himself. Sometimes instead, I used more universal language and symbols but at other stages I knew I had to stay with the self-understanding of Francis himself. At the heart of all is his centring on the figure of Christ. The culmination of his journey is the Stigmata. During one Lenten season I grappled with all of this and came out with 'La Verna'.

In 1979, I came home to Australia with my wife Madge and two children and stayed for a year at Fr. Ted Kennedy's place in Burrawang on the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. During this period, I was influenced by the theology evolving from Ted's experience at inner-city Redfern with Aboriginal people. I was led to reflect on the turning point of the life of Francis- his embrace of the Leper. During the year at Burrawang I wrote `The Leper's Song', 'The Wolf of Gubbio' and 'The Mountain Song'. I expended much effort, trying to make GMGP into a play with dialogue and stage directions as well as songs. But eventually I realised I was getting out my depth and anyway, I was going to finish up with a five hour performance!

Back in England 1980-1982, I developed vocal and instrumental arrangements for some songs. I came to realise that the 16 songs already written made, in themselves, an almost complete shape. The underlying sequence started to become clear to me and the interweaving of recurring musical motifs started to give the work a feeling of wholeness and unity.

EARLY PERFORMANCE - JANUARY 1982
In late 1981, wanting to try out new vocal arrangements, I started to teach a few songs to a local Church choir. The choir enjoyed the songs and we decided to push on to some sort of full performance. (By this time, Madge and I had decided to return to Australia to live. We had found buyers for our house in Kettering and were expecting to fly out in late January.) January 10th, 1982 was set as the performance date.

The deadline focused my efforts and over an intense period of 6-8 weeks I put together a workable sequence and script. Friends were enlisted as solo vocalists. Local musicians- a new-age folk band called Dibjak and the Ise Recorder Consort agreed to take part in the performance. Hand written or typed music and sequence-scripts were prepared for all involved. There were separate rehearsals for choir, Dibjak, Recorder Consort and soloists, rehearsals made difficult by the coldest winter on record in England with temperatures dropping to minus 17 degrees Fahrenheit.

One last role to be filled- the Narrator. We thought of Madge's brother John- he would be perfect with his soft Irish brogue; only trouble was, he was living in Germany! But we persuaded him to come and reckoned we could cover costs by taking a collection at the end of the performance. So John came with just a couple of days to prepare his part.

Two full rehearsals were arranged for the Friday and Saturday. Performance, Sunday. But blizzards on the Friday made travel impossible. The various sections of the performance group didn't meet until the Saturday, the day before the performance!

The performance was very simple (had to be!). Choir of twenty-five. Ten musicians. Narrator reading at lectern in centre stage. Solo vocalists stepping forward from choir to sing their parts. About eighty people ventured out in freezing conditions to hear us. The performance went well- audience attention was deep and feedback was enthusiastic . Primitive audio and video recordings made at the time were enough to remind me in years to follow that GMGP had once 'worked' in reality, not just in my mind.

TWELVE YEARS ON
In 1982, Madge and I with two children Jason and Niamh moved to Australia, and have lived since then in Welby, near Mittagong. At the same time I took the step of leaving teaching to earn my living through music. The transition was made successfully enough but pressure of work- concerts, recording, publishing and so on meant that GMGP stayed on the shelf, though every year I kept saying 'next year.... next year'. It was to be twelve years before its next full performance. In that time I revised the narration script, developed fuller vocal and instrumental arrangements and wrote two new songs: 'Clare's Song' and a setting of the Peace Prayer of St. Francis.. "Make Me an Instrument".

In October 1988, at the invitation of Cyril Hally a scratch performance of GMGP took place at St. Columban's College, North Turramurra with Claire Parkhill and myself singing the solo parts accompanied by a tiny choir and band consisting of guitar, recorder, organ and percussion. Even in such a threadbare production, the sequence still proved its capacity to hold and move people.

But to take it further to a full scale performance I gradually realised that I had to seek financial assistance, if I was ever to find the time, space and resources to complete the score and bring it to full-scale performance. So in 1992, I put together a 'begging kit' of tape, script and letter explaining the reasons for my appeal. After a small concert at St. Joseph's House of Spirituality, Baulkham Hills, several of the Religious there: Josephine Mitchell, Susan Connelly, Bernadette Douglas, Carole Gibbons, Kerry Keenan (all RSJ sisters) and Cathy O'Keeffe PBVM formed a committee to help with the fund-raising. In Newcastle NSW, Dorothy Woodward (a Lochinvar RSJ) formed another committee with Leo and Michelle Drinkwater, Carole Barnett and Louise Roach.

In response to the appeal, Religious Orders were generous, and out of the blue I received contributions from several individuals. A successful application to the Mercy Foundation, North Sydney resulted in a grant of $5000. I will always be grateful for the help provided by those many organisations and individuals. The result of the fund-raising was that after many years of travelling, giving over 100 concerts a year to support my family, 1994 became a blessed year, a creative sabbatical, mostly free for me to work on a full choral and orchestral score. Invaluable ideas and help were received in this time from Louise Roach (choral score) and Christine Tilley (musical direction). The GMGP fund also allowed me to purchase some essential equipment for developing arrangements and producing professional quality music manuscript.

MITTAGONG PREMIERE
Mid-1994, I began to gather local people interested in performing GMGP. Eventually, we became a choir of forty-five, an orchestra of thirty-two and the two narrators. The people came from all sections of the local community and ranged in age from ten to seventy. On November 12, 20 and 26, 1994, performances took place in Clubbe Hall, Mittagong, On the opening night we received a standing ovation from the large audience and after that, local word-of-mouth was so strong that the final performances were fully 'booked out', with nearly 2,000 people attending the three performances, including some who had travelled from Brisbane, Armidale, Wagga Wagga and Melbourne.

Since then, the Mittagong cast (which grew to 100 in 1995) has been invited to perform GMGP at the National Folk Festival, Canberra, April 17, 1995 and in November that year put on three performances including one at the Riverside Theatre, Parramatta. In March 1995, through the inspiration and commitment of Dorothy Woodward and the expert direction of Craig Wallan, there was a Hunter production by a new cast at the Mission Theatre, Newcastle, March 15 and 17, 1995.

"The whole audience was gripped from the first notes and obviously enjoyed every moment, with their spontaneous standing at the conclusion proof positive that here is a notable new work."  (Southern Highland News)

"Good Morning Good People! is a work which grapples with issues and areas of experience which are relevant to the lives of people in Australia today. For example, in 'The Leper's song' we see reflected our own uneasy encounter with apparent ugliness and real poverty in the 'Third World' and our own Aboriginal population. Withdrawal/involvement (Sister Bird) and our reactions to violence and death ('The Wolf of Gubbio') are other examples of the deep themes which give 'Good Morning Good People!' such a rich potential for musical and dramatic representation. While many musical dramas deriving from folk/popular culture are superficial, 'Good Morning Good People.!' is different. It is a deeply serious work with great power to reach ordinary people." (Elizabeth Burke, Entracte Theatre)

"I thought I'd let you know how much I enjoyed GMGP. I found it to be a particularly apt metaphor for my own 'inner journey', especially now while I'm doing some intensive inner work as part of a counselling course I am doing. The whole mid-life thing of having to give up, in a sense, the unrealised dreams of youth and seek out new ways of being; shedding the trappings of the outer life and walking off naked into the forest of the unconscious; kissing the 'lepers' that I find lurking in my shadow and learning to love them too; getting in touch with the feminine and learning to trust my intuition; experiencing the 'mountain or valley' tension of wanting to withdraw, but knowing that, to make this journey, I have to be totally immersed in my life and the lives of others; learning to live with ambiguity and rejection because I'm changing in a way that many who've known me for some time just can't understand. There is probably alot more subtlety that I haven't even begun to tap yet but even at this fairly 'coarse' level of understanding, your work has been a real vehicle of self discovery for me, so I'd like to thank you for that." (Noel K., Brisbane, QLD, July 1995)

"Anne Gregory lent us your music and we love it so much that we haven't even returned it yet... 'Good Morning Good People!' opened a new door to me. I had never heard of St. Francis of Assisi before and I wasn't too keen on reading history books. You have presented the story in such a way that it makes the history of this incredible man really come alive. I was actually the first in our family to sit down and really listen to the story of St. Francis and while I listened I was so moved I actually wept. After listening non-stop the whole way through both tapes, I raced to Mum and insisted that she listen. I also warned her that she would cry too, but I knew she's love it and sure enough she did. After hearing the musical it has given me an interest in the life of St. Francis and so it has encouraged me to look up encyclopaedias on his life. Every song that you composed for the story is constantly in my heart and I often sing them to myself. I love all the songs but I have many special favourites including 'La Verna', 'Make me An Instrument' 'Canticle of The Sun' and many more. We all thoroughly enjoy GMGP and we constantly play the tapes- so often we are in fear of wearing them out. Even my six year old brother is hooked! He sings the songs in the bath at night- some nights he gets so loud that we worry about our neighbours!"  (Skye T., 17yrs, Townsville, QLD, Feb 1997)

"I don't often write to people spontaneously. On Saturday evening I attended a performance of 'Good Morning Good People!' Over the years I have become a little familiar with the odd oratorio. I have listened to a little bit of Heddle Nash and the odd bit of Peter Dawson, Kathleen Ferrier, Janet Baker, John Shirley Quirk et al and some of the less or more unheard people. The more established Messiah, Elijah, Judas Maccabeus, Christ on The Mount Of Olives and perhaps The Dream Of Gerontius stand out among others. Today they are all joined by new people and a new oratorio. What you put on, on Saturday evening was nothing less than superb."  (Maurie O'S.)

"Good Morning Good People tells the story of Francis in an authentic and inspiring manner, and for me it was a spiritual experience. Peter Kearney has immersed himself in the life of Francis and captured the essence of Franciscan spirituality. His lyrics reflect his depth of understanding and spiritual insight." (Pina SFO)

"I value the way it cuts through all the sentimentality about Francis that seems to have accumulated over the centuries. It is like seeing through to the person, Francis, with all his disturbing, challenging and vulnerable faces. There is so much here that is refreshing and inspiring."(Joan Saboisky)

"It was well worth the drive from Armidale to see GMGP. You all did a wonderful performance, it must have been a great community building experience. It was unusual having the mood of the story coming through the instruments and voices rather than the kind of over-stimulating entertainments of today. I really remember the eerie sounds of the recorders speaking of Francis' experience in the cave. I found the whole performance more engaging because more of my senses were involved in taking it in, rather than the usual emphasis on the visual." (Kate B.)

"I'm not what you'd call a religious person ( my last contact with lives of the saints was 35 years ago in Primary School) but I saw your entire show and found it very moving, as well as superbly cast and excellently staged." (Simon Kravis, Program Co-ordinator, National Folk Festival, Canberra)