Photo Via Sacra Nova Chorale - Facebook
Sacra Nova Chorale
Sacra Nova Chorale was formed seven years ago with a mission to bring acapella music to Milwaukee. The vocalists are all local. They focus performing original, new and traditional sacred music. In this their seventh season, there are three concerts. Their next is on Sunday, April 21, under the direction of David Hein—a program of hymns and spiritual songs featuring works by Mozart, Salieri, Beethoven, Elgar, Bruckner, Gjeilo, Billings and others.
Dale Newman, Sacra Nova’s vice president and general manager, said, “I hope to offer four concerts next season, perhaps adding one in the summer. And I would like to double down by finding a second venue for a repeated program in the Milwaukee area. It will be wonderful to bring fine choral music to a wider audience.”
Sunday’s program begins with Mozart’s inspiring “Ave Verum Corpus.” This is followed by a sacred motet “Graduale:Locus iste” composed by Bruckner in 1869 as part of an annual celebration of a church’s dedication. The third composition, “Drop, drop, slow tears,” by Joanna Forbes L'Estrange, is a piece commissioned last year in memory of the countertenor James Bowman. The poignant words are by Phineas Fletcher, an English poet who lived at the turn of the 17th century. Elgar’s “The Spirit of the Lord is Upon Me” is next. Composed in 1825, Salieri’s “De Profundis” is based on the words from Psalm 130, “Out of the depths, I’ve called out to you, O Lord.”
Next will be an award-winning composition by Réjean Marois “For You I Have Delivered My Soul.” Marois is a Canadian composer, conductor and arranger who taught for 30 years at Capilano University’s jazz studies program. This composition was one of hundreds of original pieces submitted to Sacra Nova for possible performance. Newman said, “It’s an honor to be able to present this composition and more so as it’s a world premiere!”
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
A piano interlude will follow. Derrick Hahn will play Chopin “Barcarolle.” It is a wistful and romantic composition composed three years before Chopin’s death.
Providing an interesting contrast to the earlier half of the program, the Chorale resumes with “Northern Lights” by contemporary Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo. This is followed by William Billings’ “I Am the Rose of Sharon.” Billings is considered to be the first American choral composer, living in Boston at the end of the 18th century. Moving forward in time but staying in the Boston area, we’ll be treated to “Come, Ye That Love the Lord” by Alice Parker, an American composer, conductor, teacher, and arranger. It is just one of her more than 500 choral compositions. She had a long career that included writing operas, cantatas and suites, often collaborating with Robert Shaw.
We turn back in time to Billings for “Now Shall My Inward Joys Arise,” followed by the hymn “Abide with Me” by Henry Francis Lyte, a Scottish Anglican cleric who died in 1847. It will be sung to the melody of “Eventide” composed by the English organist William Henry Monk. Next, another composition by Elgar, “How Calmly the Evening.”
The program concludes with Beethoven’s “Hallelujah” from his oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives, composed in 1802. Seven years later it premiered in the United States and was Beethoven’s first success here. This will be a wonderful program of acapella music spanning centuries and cultures.
Sacra Nova Chorale will perform “With Melodious Accord,” 3 p.m. Sunday, April 21 at Plymouth Congregational Church, 2717 E. Hampshire St. For tickets and more information, visit sacranovachorale.com/.
