Lent, lending itself to great music

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Southern CA Vocal Events
Lauri D. Goldenhersh’s Weekly Highlights

 

While Lent is most often referenced as an annual ritual of self-denial, it is actually, at its root, more about reflection and pondering life’s greater issues. Giving up sweets for Lent, for instance, is a way of creating a regular reminder that some things (even chocolate) are less important than others. That is all forgotten at Easter, of course, and makes that first chocolate bunny so much better…

But if you do take part in this tradition, I hope you haven’t given up music for Lent, as the next month or so is full to brimming with gorgeous sacred music.  A small handful of notable examples:

BACH COLLEGIUM SAN DIEGO explores Bach’s artistic reflections of life’s eternal dichotomy, with ‘Agony & Ecstasy: Bach’s Muses’ on March 11 & 12. Framed as a vocal/string duo concert with select choral backup, soprano NELL SNAIDAS and violinist JULIE ANDRIJESKI join principal members of BCSD to dive into the Baroque master’s work. The concerts are in two locations in the San Diego area. Click here

With a rather unique “greatest hits” take on the time-honored requiem mass, the combined choirs of ST ALBAN’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH and ALTADENA COMMUNITY CHURCH offer ‘A Requiem Tapestry’ on Saturday and Sunday, 3/11 & 3/12, with one concert at each choir’s home church. The joint project is the brainstorm of the churches’ married music directors, DONALD CALDWELL and WENDY CALDWELL, and celebrates Wendy’s 25th anniversary at ACC. The choirs, conductors, and organist PETER FENNEMA will perform snippets from requiems by Brahms, Mozart, Fauré, Verdi, Duruflé, Rutter, Webber and Caldwell, for a multi-colored celebration of life and a truly grand sendoff for those we’ve lost. For the details we have, click here.

Finally, this Sunday’s annual ‘Concert of Remembrance‘ at St. James in the City is sure to be, as usual, one of the most moving events of the year in SoCal. Choir and orchestra will be led by music director and organist JAMES BUONEMANI, and if you haven’t yet attended one of the events of ‘Great Music at St. James’, this is a good way to start. Learn more about the whole series

COMING UP for more Lenten pondering:

3/18 — CHORALE BEL CANTO takes on the broad-reaching effects of the Reformation

3/18 — INDEPENDENT OPERA COMPANY’S unusual coupling of Gluck’s enduring opera Orfeo ed Euridice with Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater

3/19 — Welcome back the ‘Tenth Annual Women’s Evensong Invitational’ at ST. LUKE’S CHURCH in Monrovia

3/25 — Celebration of nature is a spiritual activity, too! MERITAGE VOCAL ARTS paints ‘Nature’s Portrait’

3/26 — MUSIC AT ST. BEDE’S combines Evensong traditions with gamelan music and ‘Karuna Agung: A Buddhist Requiem’ by Soko Paul Humphreys, with a little help from the gamelan ensemble from LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY

…and more to come. Have a glorious week, and thank you for supporting live singing!

Lauri D. Goldenhersh


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Featured header image:   George Bosela / FreeImages.com  


*This post is echoed from the weekly vocal events column in the Clickable Chamber Music Newsletter, serving nearly seven thousand music fans all over Southern California. The original is a text-based email newsletter, so images, links and details may differ in this enhanced version.

 

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