Lamentations, Meditations, and Celebrations. . .

An exploration of the human spirit in choral song.

We lament the pain in our lives.
We reflect on the meaning of life.
We celebrate our joys and accomplishments.

This concert explores these three conditions of the human spirit through diverse musical lenses. The concert opens with Adolphus Hailstork’s Crucifixion, a modern and dramatic setting of the pained spiritual He never said a mumblin’ word. The remainder of the first half is Thomas Tallis’ Renaissance masterpiece The Lamentations of Jeremiah. Tallis sets verses one through five of the prophet Jeremiah’s eyewitness account of the siege of the city of Jerusalem that began in 589 BC and concluded with its destruction around 586 BC. Each of the two parts of the lamentations concludes with the words, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, return to the Lord your God.”

The second half begins with two introspective and meditative works. Williametta Spencer’s At the round earth’s imagined corners is a dramatic setting of one of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets, followed by Caroline Shaw’s and the swallow, a stunning setting of Psalm 84 from 2017.

The concert concludes with three selections of celebration. Eric Whitacre’s epic Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine which tells of DaVinci’s dream of taking flight, is followed by Leo Brouwer’s Cántico De Celebración and the program concludes with Alice Parker’s immortal Hark, I hear the harps eternal.