Season Archives and Notes
Cantabile Chamber Chorale is pleased to present special notes regarding
the musical selections they will be perfroming.
the musical selections they will be perfroming.
All in Green – Cherish our Earth
Cantabile stirs your emotions with music inspired by the beauty of the earth and reverence for its creator. Hear excerpts of The Creation by F.J. Haydn, a masterful and dramatic setting about the creation of the world. You'll be moved by Schaffe in mir Gott by Johannes Brahms, an acappella setting of a text drawn from Psalm 51, and you're sure to enjoy the world premiere of Dodi li va'ani lo, the third piece written for Cantabile by composer Gerald Cohen.
Spring Awakening: Turn the World Around
Our concert begins with an exploration of classical music styles and poetry forms dealing with themes of war and peace. Intensely poignant medleys of songs.
Our concert begins with an exploration of classical music styles and poetry forms dealing with themes of war and peace. Intensely poignant medleys of songs about wars long past provide vivid reminders that music connects us with the past while retaining its relevance in today’s world. A moving Shaker hymn provides the hope that “not one of them is forgotten before God”. It’s time for a Spring Awakening and so our songs turn to thoughts of love. Songs and sonnets, musical settings old Gaelic poems, and a rousing rhythmic African folksong provide a variety of moods for awakening to the promises of spring and love.
Celestial Spring
We dedicate this program to Leila Eutermarks, remembering her gifts to us: kindness, courage, music, laughter. Cantabile commissioned Emma Lou Diemer to compose In One of the Stars to celebrate the life and in memory of Leila Eutermarks. The piece is a setting of the closing passages of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Our program title Celestial Spring comes from the featured work by Bruce Lazarus commissioned for Cantabile by artistic director Rebecca Scott.
7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 29, 2006
Christ United Methodist Church, Piscataway, NJ
7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 13, 2006
Bridgewater United Methodist Church, Bridgewater, NJ
About the concert
Christ United Methodist Church, Piscataway, NJ
7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 13, 2006
Bridgewater United Methodist Church, Bridgewater, NJ
About the concert
Winter Sky
As we sing tonight, the low winter sun sets early. To the north, beneath the handle of the Little Dipper and riding the back of Taurus, shine the Pleiades, dozens of tiny gems surrounding the Seven Sisters. This brilliant cluster, pictured on our cover courtesy of a telescopic photograph, can still be viewed by eye wherever the screen of electric light has not smeared night's vivid darkness. In this season of natural darkness, human imagination and faith create festivals of light, such as Hanukkah -- a feast of miraculously burning oil lamps -- and Christmas, which anticipates both the return of the sun and the birth of a son. Like stargazing, so also poetry and music still conjure this sense of anticipation and hope. Tonight, Cantabile presents music and texts to evoke winter's dark and celebrate festivals of light.
I Dream a World
Tonight’s texts, like dreams, are woven of memory, vision, and imagination. Such dreams have long inspired great music. The flow of inspiration continues into our time, indeed into this season. Our audiences may recognize several prominent contemporary American composers. We performed Lauridsen’s “O Magnum” and Susa’s Six Joyce Songs last year, and Susa’s Carols and Lullabies in an earlier winter program. Cantabil eis especially pleased to be performing Eric Ewazen’s “The Bells” once more. The work was premiered in 1982 by Rebecca Scott and the Juilliard Pre-College Chorale, and was presented in New York by Cantabile in 1989. We have the privilege to present world concert premieres of two new madrigals, or part-songs, by California composer David Avshalomov. They are selections from a growing cycle comprising over 40 settings of Blake’s visionary Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience.