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Friday, December 19 at 8 pm
Old South Church
Copley Square, Boston
Betsy Burleigh, conductor
See press release for this concert.
Buy tickets.
Chorus pro Musica’s annual holiday celebration for 2008 features both Benjamin Britten’s beloved Ceremony of Carols (for mixed chorus) and its modern American “companion piece,” Conrad Susa’s Carols and Lullabies: Christmas in the Southwest.
The concert will also include our traditional candlelight procession, seasonal favorites and carol singing with the audience, this year accompanied by guitar, harp and organ.
Concert tickets are $25, $35 and $45, with discounts available on selected seats for groups, students, seniors and WGBH members. For wheelchair-accessible seats or for further information, call 617-267-7442.
Written in 1942, the Ceremony of Carols is based on English carols and poems, mostly dating from the 15th and 16th centuries, set for chorus with harp accompaniment. Britten composed the work during a wartime sea voyage home to Britain from America, using texts from an anthology of English poems that he had stumbled upon in a Halifax, Nova Scotia, bookshop. It was premiered the following Christmas in Norwich, England. (On that same sea voyage Britten also completed the Hymn to St. Cecilia and continued work on his opera Peter Grimes—clearly he was at a creative peak!)
With effective use of unison, canon and homophonic writing, Britten achieves an impressive range of color and texture in a work that captures the essence of an English Christmas. The work will be performed by both men and women of the chorus.
Links:
Conrad Susa’s work is a Nativity celebration of the Americas, adding guitar and marimba to Britten’s harp and including a medley of traditional Spanish carols from Spain, Mexico and Puerto Rico. Parts are sung in Spanish, Catalán, and (sometimes) English.
Carols and Lullabies was commissioned by and dedicated to Philip Brunelle and the Plymouth Music Series of Minnesota, who premiered the work on December 6, 1992 at Plymouth Congregational Church, Minneapolis. Carols and Lullabies has been recorded by the Plymouth Music Series under the direction of Philip Brunelle.
Program noteFour or five years ago, Philip Brunelle suggested I write him a companion to Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols. To a composer, this tempting offer was another way of asking “How’s about writing us a hit?” After several years of me writhing in doubt, a friend, Gary Holt, showed me a collection of traditional Spanish carols he had sung as a boy in Arizona. Excited, I juggled them around to form a narrative. I noted their many connections with Renaissance music along with their homey, artful simplicity. Finally, the overriding image of a Southwestern piñata party for the new baby led me to add guitar and marimba to Britten's harp and to compose connective music and totally re-conceive the carols. In an often overlooked detail in the Christmas story, the New Baby bawls loudly as the shepherds leave in the final bars of Chiquirriquitín. (You may hear him in your mind.) His parents now must dandle and soothe him to sleep. Tired themselves, They drift off as the angels hover about them in protective adoration. —Conrad Susa, 1992 |
The University of Alberta Madrigal Singers have recorded Carols and Lullabies, and the music can be heard on the University of Alberta Alumni Association “Happy Holidays” website. Below are links to MP3 files which can be streamed or downloaded from their site.
Betsy Burleigh is making her debut appearance with Chorus pro Musica. She is Music Director of the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, Assistant Director of Choruses for the Cleveland Orchestra, and Coordinator of Choral and Vocal Music at Cleveland State University. Her musical career began in Boston, where she was Music Director of The Master Singers. Dr. Burleigh was chorus master for the Cleveland Opera from 2002–2006 and director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Chorus from 1998–2006.
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