CALENDAR
Vivaldi & Bach
First Presbyterian Church of Metuchen
Bass Soloist
Antonio Vivaldi: Magnificat, RV 610
J.S. Bach: Ich lasse dich nicht, du segnest mich denn!, BWV 157
Vivaldi & Bach
First Presbyterian Church of Metuchen
Bass Soloist
Antonio Vivaldi: Magnificat, RV 610
J.S. Bach: Ich lasse dich nicht, du segnest mich denn!, BWV 157
A Night at the Opera
First Presbyterian Church Staff Singers
Kevin Bailey, music director
The Tucson Spirit, The Love of Flight
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
The fascinating and rarely performed Airborne Symphony is the perfect piece to pay homage to the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base—a world premiere of a new suite version focused on the exhilaration of flying and the miracle of flight itself.
Leonard Bernstein so loved this work that he not only premiered it—with Orson Welles narrating—but he also recorded it twice. The fascinating Airborne Symphony is a great way to celebrate Tucson’s birthday!
Beginning with the words “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history…,” Copland’s Lincoln Portrait sets to music excerpts of Abraham Lincoln’s greatest documents. Too extensive to list, past luminary narrators range from Marian Anderson to Neil Armstrong, Barack Obama to Walter Cronkite, Danny Glover to Katherine Hepburn, and Coretta Scott King to Carl Sandburg.
Randall Thompson’s Testament of Freedom is a setting of texts by Thomas Jefferson in a work created for the bicentennial of Jefferson’s birth.
Works by Gershwin, Bernstein and Weill top off this All-American program.
The Tucson Spirit, The Love of Flight
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
The fascinating and rarely performed Airborne Symphony is the perfect piece to pay homage to the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base—a world premiere of a new suite version focused on the exhilaration of flying and the miracle of flight itself.
Leonard Bernstein so loved this work that he not only premiered it—with Orson Welles narrating—but he also recorded it twice. The fascinating Airborne Symphony is a great way to celebrate Tucson’s birthday!
Beginning with the words “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history…,” Copland’s Lincoln Portrait sets to music excerpts of Abraham Lincoln’s greatest documents. Too extensive to list, past luminary narrators range from Marian Anderson to Neil Armstrong, Barack Obama to Walter Cronkite, Danny Glover to Katherine Hepburn, and Coretta Scott King to Carl Sandburg.
Randall Thompson’s Testament of Freedom is a setting of texts by Thomas Jefferson in a work created for the bicentennial of Jefferson’s birth.
Works by Gershwin, Bernstein and Weill top off this All-American program.
The Tucson Spirit, The Love of Flight
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
The fascinating and rarely performed Airborne Symphony is the perfect piece to pay homage to the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base—a world premiere of a new suite version focused on the exhilaration of flying and the miracle of flight itself.
Leonard Bernstein so loved this work that he not only premiered it—with Orson Welles narrating—but he also recorded it twice. The fascinating Airborne Symphony is a great way to celebrate Tucson’s birthday!
Beginning with the words “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history…,” Copland’s Lincoln Portrait sets to music excerpts of Abraham Lincoln’s greatest documents. Too extensive to list, past luminary narrators range from Marian Anderson to Neil Armstrong, Barack Obama to Walter Cronkite, Danny Glover to Katherine Hepburn, and Coretta Scott King to Carl Sandburg.
Randall Thompson’s Testament of Freedom is a setting of texts by Thomas Jefferson in a work created for the bicentennial of Jefferson’s birth.
Works by Gershwin, Bernstein and Weill top off this All-American program.
Mozart Requiem & Prayers and Remembrances
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
The late, great Stephen Paulus’s transcendent and GRAMMY Award-winning Prayers and Remembrances, commissioned by True Concord, and the Mozart Requiem—the program with which True Concord made its New York debut at Lincoln Center, September 11, 2015.
Paulus, whom The New Yorker called “a bright, fluent inventor with a ready lyric gift,” held a long tradition of partnerships with Tucson and its many cultural institutions. Through his work he strove to inspire hope and light for the future.
The Requiem, Mozart’s ultimate masterpiece, became even more universally known through its brilliant if fictionalized use in one of the greatest, most honored films of all time, Amadeus.
Mozart Requiem & Prayers and Remembrances
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
The late, great Stephen Paulus’s transcendent and GRAMMY Award-winning Prayers and Remembrances, commissioned by True Concord, and the Mozart Requiem—the program with which True Concord made its New York debut at Lincoln Center, September 11, 2015.
Paulus, whom The New Yorker called “a bright, fluent inventor with a ready lyric gift,” held a long tradition of partnerships with Tucson and its many cultural institutions. Through his work he strove to inspire hope and light for the future.
The Requiem, Mozart’s ultimate masterpiece, became even more universally known through its brilliant if fictionalized use in one of the greatest, most honored films of all time, Amadeus.
Mozart Requiem & Prayers and Remembrances
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
The late, great Stephen Paulus’s transcendent and GRAMMY Award-winning Prayers and Remembrances, commissioned by True Concord, and the Mozart Requiem—the program with which True Concord made its New York debut at Lincoln Center, September 11, 2015.
Paulus, whom The New Yorker called “a bright, fluent inventor with a ready lyric gift,” held a long tradition of partnerships with Tucson and its many cultural institutions. Through his work he strove to inspire hope and light for the future.
The Requiem, Mozart’s ultimate masterpiece, became even more universally known through its brilliant if fictionalized use in one of the greatest, most honored films of all time, Amadeus.
Mozart Requiem & Martines Dixit Dominus
Spire Chamber Ensemble
Ben A. Spalding, conductor
Ensemble
Mozart's Requiem is a profound emotional journey that ranges from angst, sheer terror, and sublime transcendence. Experience the region’s first ever period performance featuring basset horns, natural trumpets, sackbuts and more – breathing new life to this consummate masterpiece. Left unfinished at the composer's untimely death, the Requiem was completed by Franz Süssmayer, offering a poignant glimpse into Mozart's final musical thoughts. The Mozart is paired with a performance of Dixit Dominus, by 18th-Century composer Marianna Martines who was a student of Haydn and was one of Vienna’s most prominent composers. She received more acclaim than perhaps any other female composer of her time, yet her name isn’t mentioned enough today. Dixit Dominus is a prime example of her skill in combining the Baroque contrapuntal tradition with the emerging Classical style.
Mozart Requiem & Martines Dixit Dominus
Spire Chamber Ensemble
Ben A. Spalding, conductor
Ensemble
Mozart's Requiem is a profound emotional journey that ranges from angst, sheer terror, and sublime transcendence. Experience the region’s first ever period performance featuring basset horns, natural trumpets, sackbuts and more – breathing new life to this consummate masterpiece. Left unfinished at the composer's untimely death, the Requiem was completed by Franz Süssmayer, offering a poignant glimpse into Mozart's final musical thoughts. The Mozart is paired with a performance of Dixit Dominus, by 18th-Century composer Marianna Martines who was a student of Haydn and was one of Vienna’s most prominent composers. She received more acclaim than perhaps any other female composer of her time, yet her name isn’t mentioned enough today. Dixit Dominus is a prime example of her skill in combining the Baroque contrapuntal tradition with the emerging Classical style.
Mozart Requiem & Martines Dixit Dominus
Spire Chamber Ensemble
Ben A. Spalding, conductor
Ensemble
Mozart's Requiem is a profound emotional journey that ranges from angst, sheer terror, and sublime transcendence. Experience the region’s first ever period performance featuring basset horns, natural trumpets, sackbuts and more – breathing new life to this consummate masterpiece. Left unfinished at the composer's untimely death, the Requiem was completed by Franz Süssmayer, offering a poignant glimpse into Mozart's final musical thoughts. The Mozart is paired with a performance of Dixit Dominus, by 18th-Century composer Marianna Martines who was a student of Haydn and was one of Vienna’s most prominent composers. She received more acclaim than perhaps any other female composer of her time, yet her name isn’t mentioned enough today. Dixit Dominus is a prime example of her skill in combining the Baroque contrapuntal tradition with the emerging Classical style.
Handel & Vivaldi
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria is a perennial favorite of audiences and, second only to his Four Seasons, is his best-known work. The liturgical Gloria text was first inspired by the angels’ joyful melody at Christ’s birth. True Concord brings this masterpiece to life with a lively and historically-informed interpretation.
George Frideric Handel may be best known for his Messiah, a monument of Western music, but the exhilarating Dixit Dominus prefigured that work. Inspired by the opera art form, this composition is filled with virtuosic solo melodies, dramatic choral sound and orchestral flourishes.
Handel & Vivaldi
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria is a perennial favorite of audiences and, second only to his Four Seasons, is his best-known work. The liturgical Gloria text was first inspired by the angels’ joyful melody at Christ’s birth. True Concord brings this masterpiece to life with a lively and historically-informed interpretation.
George Frideric Handel may be best known for his Messiah, a monument of Western music, but the exhilarating Dixit Dominus prefigured that work. Inspired by the opera art form, this composition is filled with virtuosic solo melodies, dramatic choral sound and orchestral flourishes.
Handel & Vivaldi
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria is a perennial favorite of audiences and, second only to his Four Seasons, is his best-known work. The liturgical Gloria text was first inspired by the angels’ joyful melody at Christ’s birth. True Concord brings this masterpiece to life with a lively and historically-informed interpretation.
George Frideric Handel may be best known for his Messiah, a monument of Western music, but the exhilarating Dixit Dominus prefigured that work. Inspired by the opera art form, this composition is filled with virtuosic solo melodies, dramatic choral sound and orchestral flourishes.
Holiday Special
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
Mix things up with a different style, including fun favorites of the holidays. Relax, sit back, savor a drink, bask in the view for this Holiday Party in Song. All in one of Tucson’s iconic locations.
Lessons & Carols
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
Beautiful churches, candlelight, the sharing of the Christmas story in words and song. Join your voice with True Concord’s “halo of resonance” (Gramophone) to celebrate the beauty, awe and joy of the season.
Lessons & Carols
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
Beautiful churches, candlelight, the sharing of the Christmas story in words and song. Join your voice with True Concord’s “halo of resonance” (Gramophone) to celebrate the beauty, awe and joy of the season.
Lessons & Carols
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
Beautiful churches, candlelight, the sharing of the Christmas story in words and song. Join your voice with True Concord’s “halo of resonance” (Gramophone) to celebrate the beauty, awe and joy of the season.
Lessons & Carols
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
Beautiful churches, candlelight, the sharing of the Christmas story in words and song. Join your voice with True Concord’s “halo of resonance” (Gramophone) to celebrate the beauty, awe and joy of the season.
Lessons & Carols
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
Beautiful churches, candlelight, the sharing of the Christmas story in words and song. Join your voice with True Concord’s “halo of resonance” (Gramophone) to celebrate the beauty, awe and joy of the season.
Lutheran Vespers
Yale Consort
James O’Donnell, conductor
Join Yale Consort for a service of Lutheran Vespers. For at least the last eighteen centuries, some formula for prayer at the end of the day has been part of the Christian tradition. Though we don’t know precisely what the earliest Vespers looked or sounded like, certain themes have endured, including confession, gratitude, and light. Through the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, we explore these ancient traditions.
Featured repertoire: J.S. Bach: Nun komm der Heiden Heiland BWV 61.
Yale Consort will be accompanied by a Baroque orchestra for this service.
Es begab sich zu der Zeit...
Harmonia Stellarum Houston
Mario Aschauer, artistic director
Ensemble
Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger’s Pastori di Bettelemme constitutes one of the earliest Christmas oratorios in music history, composed for a performance on Christmas Eve 1629 in the Apostolic Palace in Rome. We pair it with the first American performance of the anonymous Historia von der Gebuhrt Christi from 1686, today in the Saxon State Library Dresden.
Frankenstein, Brahms & The Search For Love
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
Ever since its publishing in 1818, young Mary Shelley’s masterpiece has created an unwavering fascination with Frankenstein, inspiring major performance works created to this day.
What is this endless fascination? Is it a horror story? A love story? What does a book written over 200 years ago tell us about empathy and compassion that we need to learn today?
True Concord is proud to present one of the most recent interpretations; Co-Composer-In-Residence Timothy C. Takach and choreographer Penny Freeh’s Unfashioned Creature, a Choral Ballet, in its Southwest Premiere, performed by the company for which the dance was created.
Rooted in Shelley’s groundbreaking novel, Unfashioned Creature explores personhood, otherness, abandonment and hopeful yearning, all with vocalists performing a libretto based on Shelley’s text.
Frankenstein, Brahms & The Search For Love
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
Ever since its publishing in 1818, young Mary Shelley’s masterpiece has created an unwavering fascination with Frankenstein, inspiring major performance works created to this day.
What is this endless fascination? Is it a horror story? A love story? What does a book written over 200 years ago tell us about empathy and compassion that we need to learn today?
True Concord is proud to present one of the most recent interpretations; Co-Composer-In-Residence Timothy C. Takach and choreographer Penny Freeh’s Unfashioned Creature, a Choral Ballet, in its Southwest Premiere, performed by the company for which the dance was created.
Rooted in Shelley’s groundbreaking novel, Unfashioned Creature explores personhood, otherness, abandonment and hopeful yearning, all with vocalists performing a libretto based on Shelley’s text.
Frankenstein, Brahms & The Search For Love
True Concord Voices & Orchestra
Eric Holtan, conductor
Ensemble
Ever since its publishing in 1818, young Mary Shelley’s masterpiece has created an unwavering fascination with Frankenstein, inspiring major performance works created to this day.
What is this endless fascination? Is it a horror story? A love story? What does a book written over 200 years ago tell us about empathy and compassion that we need to learn today?
True Concord is proud to present one of the most recent interpretations; Co-Composer-In-Residence Timothy C. Takach and choreographer Penny Freeh’s Unfashioned Creature, a Choral Ballet, in its Southwest Premiere, performed by the company for which the dance was created.
Rooted in Shelley’s groundbreaking novel, Unfashioned Creature explores personhood, otherness, abandonment and hopeful yearning, all with vocalists performing a libretto based on Shelley’s text.
Un sarao de la Chacona
Ensemble Origo
Eric Rice, artistic director
Baritone
Though the sarabande and the chaconne were stylized sections of courtly suites by Baroque composers such as Scarlatti and Bach, their origins are far removed from any European court, stemming instead from New Spain. In a book about the Spanish colony in 1579, a Dominican friar described the sarabande as a lascivious dance and identified it with the indigenous population. However, at least one surviving song—a villancico for Christmas —links it with enslaved Africans, suggesting that both populations were involved in the creation of the genre. In this program, Ensemble Origo aims to contextualize these origins, showing how a song that mentions the dance was likely performed following Christmas services. The next two sections of the concert trace the printing history of both genres (which were related at one time) from simple guitar strumming patterns that sometimes accompanied voices to the stylized instrumental works adopted by hundreds of European composers in the centuries that followed. The ensemble aims to bring what is known of the genres’ lost—or suppressed—histories to light.
Requiem Æternam: Music for the End of Days
Three Notch’d Road Baroque Ensemble
Bass Soloist
Three Notch’d Road explores the healing power of music with a program of memory, hope, and farewell. As remembrance of the dead during the month of November is an ancient custom, we welcome you to join us for this musical exploration of the German Baroque, English & Spanish Renaissance, and American sacred music.
The young J.S. Bach’s cantata BWV 106 “Actus Tragicus,” written for a funeral, features violas da gamba and recorders and contains some of the most hope-filled music Bach ever wrote. English texts include joyful American hymnody, Henry Purcell’s “Evening Hymn,” Thomas Campion’s “Never weather-beaten sail,” and American composer David Hughes’ (b.1980) “May He Support Us All The Day Long” (text by St. John Henry Newman).
Requiem Æternam: Music for the End of Days
Three Notch’d Road Baroque Ensemble
Bass Soloist
Three Notch’d Road explores the healing power of music with a program of memory, hope, and farewell. As remembrance of the dead during the month of November is an ancient custom, we welcome you to join us for this musical exploration of the German Baroque, English & Spanish Renaissance, and American sacred music.
The young J.S. Bach’s cantata BWV 106 “Actus Tragicus,” written for a funeral, features violas da gamba and recorders and contains some of the most hope-filled music Bach ever wrote. English texts include joyful American hymnody, Henry Purcell’s “Evening Hymn,” Thomas Campion’s “Never weather-beaten sail,” and American composer David Hughes’ (b.1980) “May He Support Us All The Day Long” (text by St. John Henry Newman).
Requiem Æternam: Music for the End of Days
Three Notch’d Road Baroque Ensemble
Bass Soloist
Three Notch’d Road explores the healing power of music with a program of memory, hope, and farewell. As remembrance of the dead during the month of November is an ancient custom, we welcome you to join us for this musical exploration of the German Baroque, English & Spanish Renaissance, and American sacred music.
The young J.S. Bach’s cantata BWV 106 “Actus Tragicus,” written for a funeral, features violas da gamba and recorders and contains some of the most hope-filled music Bach ever wrote. English texts include joyful American hymnody, Henry Purcell’s “Evening Hymn,” Thomas Campion’s “Never weather-beaten sail,” and American composer David Hughes’ (b.1980) “May He Support Us All The Day Long” (text by St. John Henry Newman).
The Lutheran Vespers Re-Imagined
Bach Akademie Charlotte
Nicholas Haigh, conductor
Ensemble
Join the Bach Akademie Charlotte Choir on a musical journey beginning in Johann Sebastian Bach’s music library in Leipzig and ending in the present day. Our program opens with virtuosic choral works that the great Thomaskantor taught his students in Leipzig before exploring contemporary responses to similar texts. Framed by the structure of a Lutheran service of Vespers, this concert will also include Bach Akademie Charlotte’s first performances of works by living composers. A not-to-be-missed highlight will be the first performance of Giles Swayne’s Magnificat I in the Southeast. Inspired by a field trip he took to southern Senegal and Gambia, Swayne incorporated the opening call of the Senegalese ploughing song O Lulum into the beginning of his composition. Brimming with unbridled fertility, rhythmic verve, and percussive drive, Swayne’s work shattered expectations of what ‘church music’ could be.
The Lutheran Vespers Re-Imagined
Bach Akademie Charlotte
Nicholas Haigh, conductor
Ensemble
Join the Bach Akademie Charlotte Choir on a musical journey beginning in Johann Sebastian Bach’s music library in Leipzig and ending in the present day. Our program opens with virtuosic choral works that the great Thomaskantor taught his students in Leipzig before exploring contemporary responses to similar texts. Framed by the structure of a Lutheran service of Vespers, this concert will also include Bach Akademie Charlotte’s first performances of works by living composers. A not-to-be-missed highlight will be the first performance of Giles Swayne’s Magnificat I in the Southeast. Inspired by a field trip he took to southern Senegal and Gambia, Swayne incorporated the opening call of the Senegalese ploughing song O Lulum into the beginning of his composition. Brimming with unbridled fertility, rhythmic verve, and percussive drive, Swayne’s work shattered expectations of what ‘church music’ could be.
The Lutheran Vespers Re-Imagined
Bach Akademie Charlotte
Nicholas Haigh, conductor
Ensemble
Join the Bach Akademie Charlotte Choir on a musical journey beginning in Johann Sebastian Bach’s music library in Leipzig and ending in the present day. Our program opens with virtuosic choral works that the great Thomaskantor taught his students in Leipzig before exploring contemporary responses to similar texts. Framed by the structure of a Lutheran service of Vespers, this concert will also include Bach Akademie Charlotte’s first performances of works by living composers. A not-to-be-missed highlight will be the first performance of Giles Swayne’s Magnificat I in the Southeast. Inspired by a field trip he took to southern Senegal and Gambia, Swayne incorporated the opening call of the Senegalese ploughing song O Lulum into the beginning of his composition. Brimming with unbridled fertility, rhythmic verve, and percussive drive, Swayne’s work shattered expectations of what ‘church music’ could be.
Spatial Harmonies
Re:Soundings* ensemble debut
Stephen Sands, conductor
Ensemble
Bass Soloist
Experience the music of des Prez, Victoria, Pärt, Whitacre, and Tavener as Re:Soundings, A Choral Music Project reimagines choral music performance. On October 15, 2024, join us at St. Mary the Virgin on West 46th Street for an immersive concert where 16 professional voices under the direction of Stephen Sands, transform the space with stunning harmonies and spatial effects. Don't miss this unique musical journey!
Magnificent Madrigals: Monteverdi's Greatest Choral Music
Fourth Wall Ensemble
Christopher Allen, conductor
Ensemble
Rob Kapilow and the celebrated 12-singer vocal group Fourth Wall Ensemble explore the life and career of Claudio Monteverdi – the key transition figure from Renaissance to Baroque music – through his dazzling madrigals. These compelling, deeply emotional choral works used music to illustrate the emotion of a work’s text in revolutionary ways that laid the groundwork for musical forms that still resonate today. The road to modern vocal music begins with Monteverdi’s extraordinary madrigals.
Tour de Choeur
Chorus of Westerly
Andrew Howell, music director
Bass Soloist
Join us to celebrate the Chorus of Westerly's recent tour to France and England with a themed evening including a live auction, raw bar, and musical delights!
Caroline Shaw’s Partita
Fourth Wall Ensemble
Christopher Allen, conductor
Caroline Shaw's Pulitzer Prize-winning Partita for 8 Voices is a work of profound emotional beauty, a timeless expression that feels at home in any musical era. For these performances, the groundbreaking vocal talents of Fourth Wall Ensemble will weave together a program that begins with improvised medieval chant, flowing seamlessly through the Renaissance and Baroque periods, before arriving at Shaw's staggering sonic suite.