Part of a project for Emmanuel Music's 50th anniversary season that included commissioning four local composers: John Harbison, Kati Agocs, Jonathan Bailey Holland, and Yehudi Wyner, to create a cappella motets directly inspired by four cantatas (BWV 1, 4, 14, and 140). The project was delayed by COVID.

Morning Star is a three-minute motet for SATB chorus designed as a prelude to Johann Sebastian Bach’s cantata Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (How beautifully the morning star shines), BWV 1. "I chose as my text the Regina Coeli (Queen of Heaven) prayer set in Latin, with an added interpolation in Latin — 'fear not' — that is not in the original prayer."