The Santa Barbara Choral Society, led by artistic director and conductor JoAnne Wasserman will present a special Mother’s Day concert, 3 p.m. Sunday, May 12 at Trinity Lutheran Church, 909 N. La Cumbre Road.
Featured soloists will be soprano Elissa Johnston, tenor Jimmer Bolden, and baritone Michal Dawson Connor.
The spectacular program, which the society calls “Visionaries, Then and Now,” will include Gabriel Fauré‘s “Requiem in d-minor, Opus 48” (1887-90); Norwegian-born Ola Gjeilo‘s “Dark Night of the Soul” (2012); and selected works by the American, Christopher Tin (born 1976).
How about that for the mother who has everything?
No more exquisite music was ever penned than Fauré’s mass, certainly no music more “heavenly.” Yet the composer was, at best, ambivalent about religion, and the origin of this work is something of a mystery, as evidenced by his summation of the work itself:
“Everything I managed to entertain by way of religious illusion I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest.”
Ola Gjeilo (born 1978) is also a pianist, and the driving piano continuo of “The Dark Night” is a kind of triple-time Phillip Glass. (“If you come to my house, all you’ll see is a piano,” Glass told me.)
It is a gripping piece, with the chorus starting out wordless and gradually developing articulate statements. It is all but impossible to avoid getting caught up in its momentum.
I don’t know about the title, though: the music feels more à bout de souffle than voyage au bout de la nuit.
And speaking of breath, Christopher Tin is quite a breath of fresh air, at the same time that he takes the breath away with his musical audacity — layering one musical reality on top of another so each shines through the other, all with the energy of a toboggan and a broad, engaging smile.
(And when you hear him, if you haven’t, you will know I am not exaggerating his uniqueness, but rather understating it.) Many of his most famous works have video associations.
Tickets to “Visionaries, Then and Now” are $30 (general admission), $20 (seniors 65+), and $10 students and children).
“With only one performance, we are likely to sell out, so we recommend you secure tickets now.”
To purchase tickets online, visit https://sbcs.app.neoncrm.com/nx/portal/neonevents/events#/events/4419 or www.sbchoral.org.
“All guests are invited to stay after the concert and mingle with the artists at a reception celebrating Mother’s Day and community with the Choral Society family.”