At the Princeton University Chapel at 8 p.m
BY: Princeton Pro Musica
Princeton Pro Musica will open its 31st season on Saturday, Nov. 7, at the Princeton University Chapel at 8 p.m. Tickets are $35 and $25; students with ID $10. Tickets will be available at the door on November 7, and may be purchased in advance by calling 609-683-5122 or on line www.princetonpromusica.org.
Morten Lauridsen’s luminous and moving Lux Aeterna will be the principal offering of Music of the Spheres, a program also featuring works by Mozart, Brahms, Raminsh and more.
Frances Fowler Slade, founder and Music Director, will conduct. Eric Plutz, Princeton University Organist, will play for the Lauridsen.
Morten Lauriden is one of the most beloved and frequently performed choral composers – his O Magnum Mysterium is included on over 50 recordings, and both recordings of his Lux Aeterna were nominated for Grammys. He is Distinguished Professor of Composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music. He received the 2007 Medal of Arts “for his composition of radiant choral works combining musical beauty, power, and spiritual depth that have thrilled audiences worldwide.”
Lux Aeterna was composed for the Los Angeles Master Chorale and its conductor Paul Salamunovich, and premiered at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on April 13, 1997. Each of its five connected movements contains references to “light,” assembled from various sacred Latin texts. In response to this music, Jim Svejda said on National Public Radio, “… it IS possible for important contemporary music to speak directly to the heart.”
The second half of Princeton Pro Musica’s Music of the Spheres program will draw upon two settings of the text Ave Verum Corpus, by W. A. Mozart and Imant Raminsh. Pro Musica’s conductor Slade says, “The Mozart setting, one of the true gems of musical composition, has been one of my favorites since high school. But Raminsh’s expansive setting has taken a place along side the Mozart in my mind. They are both truly great works.”
The concert title comes from the Canadian composer Stephen Chatman’s Thou Whose Harmony is the Music of the Spheres, a beautiful piece for chorus and oboe solo. The lyrical oboe part will be played by Philadelphia oboist Jeremy Kesselman. This piece sums up the mission of Princeton Pro Musica with the line “By our presence here with one another…may some of the harshness and discord of our human lives/ Be transmuted into music.”
The program will continue with the East Coast premiere of Levate in Excelsum by John F. Cavallaro, a member of the Princeton Pro Musica bass section. This motet is dedicated to the memory of the crew of Space Shuttle Columbia, lost on February 1, 2003.
As a historical anchor for the concert, but also a preview of the Princeton Pro Musica performance of Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem on May 1, the chorus will perform the Brahms motet Schaffe in mir Gott ein rein Herz (Create in me a clean heart), Op. 29, No. 2. Listeners will hear many similarities to the Requiem, but will also notice clearly the influence of J.S. Bach.
The final two pieces on the program are from folk traditions. How Can I Keep from Singing, arranged by Eric Nelson, combines that American folk hymn with two others: O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing and Amazing Grace. Nelson is Director of Choral Activities at Emory University in Atlanta and conductor of the Atlanta Sacred Chorale. Comments conductor Slade, “The program gave me a chance to perform my favorite short choral pieces, and this certainly makes the list.”
The final piece on the program, If You Can Walk You Can Dance (If You Can Talk You Can Sing), is a setting of a Zimbabwean proverb by the versatile, award-winning Minnesota composer Elizabeth Alexander. Alexander’s music has been performed by hundreds of choirs, including VocalEssence (Philip Brunelle), the Gregg Smith Singers, the New York Virtuoso singers, and the entire student body of the Waunakee Elementary School. This piece is based on Latin jazz rhythms, and includes some surprises.
Tickets for the November 7 performance are $25 and $35, and $10 for students with ID. For tickets and more information, call 609-683-5122 or visit www.princetonpromusica.org.
This program is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Princeton Pro Musica exists to perform choral masterworks and other works of the choral literature with energy, passion, and uncompromising artistic excellence. We believe in the power of choral music to uplift and transform present and future audiences, performers, and communities.
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Janet Pfeiffer
Executive Director
Princeton Pro Musica
609.683.5122
info@princetonpromusica.org