We are extremely happy to be collaborating with organist Rodney Gehrke for our Fall 2016 concerts: “Dew from Heaven.” The concerts explore sacred music for voices and organ from the 17th to the 21st century. The first half of the program includes two chorale motets from 19th century Germany: Felix Mendelssohn’s “Aus tiefer Noth schrei ich zu dir” and Johannes Brahms’s “O Heiland reiss die Himmel auf.” Both works reveal the two composers’ familiarity with the German chorale tradition and their extensive study of the music of their predecessors, especially the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The second half of the program explores music from the Anglican tradition, with works by Orlando Gibbons, Henry Purcell, and Charles Villers Stanford. The program also includes Arvo Pärt’s tranquil, still (nearly motionless) setting of a couple of verses from the Latin Pentecostal hymn “Veni creator spiritus” that call upon the Creator Spirit to “guide our minds with light and inflame our hearts with love.” In addition to accompanying the choir, Mr. Gehrke will play a chorale prelude by J.S. Bach and C.V. Stanford’s prelude on Gibbons’s “The Angels’ Song.”