This Shining Night: Music & Poetry for a Summer Evening
Advance: $25 ($20 senior, $5 youth/student; ages 6-10 free) |
At the door: $30 ($24 senior)
- Sarah Mattox, mezzo-soprano
Donald Skirvin — Curve of Gold (setting of poetry by Sara Teasdale; Sarah Mattox, mezzo-soprano)
John Corigliano — Fern Hill (setting of poetry by Dylan Thomas; Sarah Mattox, mezzo-soprano)
Philip Glass — Three Songs for Chorus A Cappella (lyrics by Leonard Cohen, Raymond Lévesque, & Octavio Paz)
The Seattle Choral Company (SCC), led by their founding artistic director, Freddie Coleman, announces the final concert of their 41st season, titled "This Shining Night: Music and Poetry for a Summer Evening".
The concert, which unites four living American composers on themes of love and innocence, will take place on Saturday, June 10, 2023, at 8pm at Seattle First Baptist Church.
There will be a pre-concert talk at 7pm with SCC Director Freddie Coleman.
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Morten Lauridsen, a native of Washington state, is considered one of the most important voices in modern choral music and his works are both identifiable and timeless. His Nocturnes weave motifs of night and romantic love into one integrated choral cycle.
Curve of Gold, by Seattle resident Donald Skirvin, is a setting of Sara Teasdale poems that explore love's journey as we seek, find, and sometimes lose our way. Skirvin dedicated the work to the SCC in 2015, and we are delighted to present it again on June 10.
Philip Glass, one of the most prolific composers of our time, wrote Three Songs for the 350th anniversary of Quebec in 1984. It is a tightly structured trilogy of lyrics by three legendary poets and songwriters.
John Corigliano's 1960 setting of Dylan Thomas' poem Fern Hill transports the listener to a sonic landscape of lush groves and expansive fields, evoking a childhood almost forgotten. Corigliano once stated that Fern Hill is "a blithe poem, touched by darkness, that sings joyously of youth and its keen perceptions."
About Seattle Choral Company
Founded in 1982 by Artistic Director Freddie Coleman, the Seattle Choral Company has, over the course of 40 years, become one of the region's most accomplished and respected choral organizations. Maestro Coleman's finely-tuned yet spirited interpretations of the masterworks of classical choral music have been acclaimed by critics and audiences, including Berlioz's Te Deum, Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, Orff's Carmina Burana, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Haydn's Creation, Mozart's C minor Mass, Bach's St. John Passion, and many more. After a recent performance at Benaroya Hall featuring Johannes Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem, The Gathering Note wrote that the performance "was anchored by deep emotions, a strong sense of purpose, and an excellent advocate in Freddie Coleman and the Seattle Choral Company."
Freddie Coleman has also championed America's finest contemporary choral composers, offering area listeners their first live hearing of such works as Arvo Pärt's Te Deum, Philip Glass' Itaipu, Hawley's Songs of Kabir, Roxanna Panufnik's Westminster Mass, and Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna. In 2001, the SCC commissioned a new choral work, Seattle, by New York composer William Hawley, as part of the city of Seattle’s sesquicentennial celebrations. Additionally, the Company has commissioned and premiered new works from gifted Seattle composers, such as Donald Skirvin and Bern Herbolsheimer. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently applauded this commitment, stating "it's not surprising that Coleman…would devote an entire program to contemporary music. He has long been an advocate for living composers."
In the 1980s the Seattle Choral Company toured to Australia and the former Soviet Union. (Their work as cultural ambassadors was recognized with a commendation from the Washington State legislature.) The many albums it has recorded, including The Moon Is Silently Singing, When the Morning Stars Sang Together, Carmina Burana, and Unearthed, have been highly praised and received extensive radio exposure. The Company has recorded soundtracks for Public Television (Death: the Trip of a Lifetime) and NBC (Crime and Punishment and Noah's Ark), and its recordings have been used in at least a dozen Hollywood movie trailers.
The Seattle Choral Company has become a valued collaborator with other performing arts organizations in the region. It has appeared on stage with the Pacific Northwest Ballet many times, including several mountings of Kent Stowell's staging of Orff's Carmina Burana, and Hail to the Conquering Hero, featuring choruses by Handel. In 2010, the SCC appeared with the Seattle Youth Symphony in Mahler's Symphony No. 2 ("Resurrection") at Benaroya Hall. The SCC has appeared with the Seattle Symphony on many occasions, including Those Glorious MGM Movie Musicals, Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Holiday Pops with Doc Severinsen, Holiday Pops with Marvin Hamlisch, New Year's Eve with the Seattle Symphony, and most recently The Matrix Live In Concert. On four occasions, they have appeared at the Paramount Theater in the touring production of Video Games Live, and members of the Company sang in both the Seattle and Portland productions of Star Wars In Concert. The SCC is partnered with the Northwest Sinfonietta, and is an artist-in-residence at Saint Mark's Episcopal Cathedral.
http://www.seattlechoralcompany.org