New World Chorale’s first collaboration with the MIT Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Adam Boyles, features a performance of Dona Nobis Pacem by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Premiered in 1936, Dona Nobis Pacem is a visionary anti-war statement. Vaughan Williams knew very well the horrors of war, having served in the First World War, and he suffered the loss of many close friends and colleagues. The cantata, as he called it, combines texts from various sources with a particular emphasis on the poetry of Walt Whitman.