Welcome to the first concerts of our 41st season! This year, as I began planning the programs in detail, we had already decided to make Mendelssohn’s Elijah, with Baroque orchestra, the centerpiece of the season in March. I wanted to bookend that with a cappella programs that would showcase composers whose works have had much less exposure. Our board has been urging me for some time to program a concert consisting of my own compositions. While we have performed my works periodically over the years, I had resisted devoting an entire program to them, but agreed that it would be appropriate for my 20th season as BCG Artistic Director. Our June concert, “In the Dolian Mode,” will introduce a larger body of my work, which we hope you will thoroughly enjoy.
For this, our Fall concert, I decided to feature other under-represented composers, current and past. It should not be news to anyone that women composers have been neglected in performance over the centuries. While BCG has performed many compositions written by women, it is difficult to appreciate the diversity and scope of women’s contributions to the field when they are only lightly sprinkled into a season’s programs. Just after our June 2019 concerts I began doing research to increase my own familiarity with both women composers and their works. With the help of the Internet and two trusted advisers on our board, I perused hundreds of scores composed by women across the globe. In a few cases I “rediscovered” favorite composers represented on prior concerts. Then I went about “discovering” many other wonderful composers. Simple keyword searches turned up lists compiled by organizations and individuals just for this purpose. And I kept an eye out for the programs of colleagues, so I could look up the names I was unfamiliar with. More often than not, one search would lead down a path to many other composers, and soon I was swamped with options. Women composers are there, in abundance, and have been throughout history.
The hardest part, after looking at and listening to myriad pieces, was to narrow down the choices to a pleasing, coherent program. After some false starts, I decided that it would make sense to survey composers from around the world on the first half of the concert, then feature Americans on the second. There is simply not enough space here to go into depth on each of the women represented, so I encourage you to take your program home and do your own searches to learn more about the composers whose works you liked.
We’ll move chronologically, beginning in the 12th century with Hildegard of Bingen. The German Benedictine abbess was a Christian mystic and visionary, as well as writer, composer, and philosopher. She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony. O viridissima virgo is one such example of her melodic setting of a prayer to the Virgin Mary. I have added some drones and simple harmonies in the hope of slightly enhancing the music for a choral setting.
Isabella Leonarda is another woman who was able to create music—and have it survive—due to her position as mother superior at a convent. Born to a wealthy family in 17th-century Novarra, Italy, she is known to have written nearly 200 works over the last 60 years of her life. Scholars believe that she didn’t begin composing regularly until the age of 50, and it is these later works for which she is known today. Her motet Alma Redemptoris Mater was originally composed for a 4-part choir of women’s voices for performance in the convent, but we use an arrangement for mixed voices. The motet is in four distinct sections, each with its own meter and musical flavor.
Born 45 years before Leonarda, in Ferrara, Italy, Vittoria Aleotti also had a privileged upbringing. She developed an interest in music after listening to her older sister’s lessons. Her talent on the harpsichord became evident at the age of 7, and she was sent to study at Ferrara’s San Vito, a convent famous for fostering young musical talent. By the age of 14, Vittoria chose to enter the convent and a life of service. Io v’amo vita mia is from her first and only collection of madrigals, published when she was about 18. Nothing is known of her after this point, but scholars believe there’s more to the story. A woman named Raffaella Aleotti, originally thought to be Vittoria’s sister, published a book of sacred motets soon after the madrigals appeared. Many now believe that Vittoria changed her name upon entering the convent. Raffaella became well known as an exceptional organist and teacher at the convent.
Fanny Mendelssohn was the oldest of four children born into a prominent family of businessmen and bankers. She first studied piano with her mother, who had been trained in the Berliner-Bach tradition, and by the age of 13 could play all 24 of Bach’s preludes and fugues from memory. In 1820 she was sent, along with her brother Felix, to study at the Sing-Akademie in Berlin with Carl Friedrich Zelter. Both received composition lessons from Zelter, who seemed quite impressed with Fanny’s talent. Somewhat later, in a letter to Goethe, Zelter gave Fanny’s skill as a pianist the highest praise for a woman at the time: “She plays like a man.” But the era’s prevailing attitudes limited her ability to be taken seriously as a composer. Her father recognized that Felix might have a career as a musician, but that for Fanny “it must only be an ornament.” Schöne Fremde is an image-filled poem by Joseph von Eichendorff. It was set by various composers of the day, including Schumann. Fanny’s version, a largely homophonic presentation of the text, skillfully employs the harmonic conventions of the era.
Heyr þú oss hymnum á is the first piece I’ve ever performed in the Icelandic language. Written for a 2005 concert series in the capital city Reykjavík, it sets four verses of an Icelandic psalm from the 16th century. Its composer, 42-year-old Anna Thorvaldsdottir, is a rising star, currently composer-in-residence for the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. She received her MS and PhD from UC San Diego, going on to win the Nordic Council Music Prize in 2012. The New York Philharmonic commissioned her to compose the symphonic poem Metacosmos, which was premiered in April 2018.
Born in Liepāja, Latvia to a math teacher who was also a choir conductor, Selga Mence went on to study musicology in conservatory, where she began composing. Since 2004 she has been the head of the composition department at the Latvian Academy of Music. She is known primarily for her choral music, and many Latvian choirs have achieved victory at international competitions with her works. Though she often uses Latvian folk melodies and texts, her style tends to blur the line between folk-song arrangements and original compositions. One such example is Kalējs kala debesis (Blacksmith forges in the sky), which sets four lines from a Latvian folktale. The driving rhythms and syncopated melodies give this piece a propulsive energy that is very exciting.
Chen Yi was born and raised in Guangzhou, China. She is part of a talented family—her parents were doctors and musicians, and her siblings have gone on to music careers in China. After receiving her MA in music composition from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, she moved to New York. In 2006, she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and she has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Today, she and her husband, composer Zhou Long, are professors of composition at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. Distance Can’t Keep Us Two Apart is the result of the Raymond Brock commission from the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) in 2012. Chen selected two lines from a Tang Dynasty poem that have been used popularly today among Chinese people, “If I have a friend who knows my heart, Distance can’t keep us two apart.” She hopes that her piece can “serve as a bridge to improve understanding between people from all cultures.”
Bulgarian-born Dobrinka Tabakova, after winning an international prize in music at age 14, was eventually awarded a PhD in composition from the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she still lives today. This setting of the Marian antiphon Alma Redemptoris Mater was commissioned by Merton College, Oxford to celebrate the college’s 750th anniversary. The composer writes:
For this, our Fall concert, I decided to feature other under-represented composers, current and past. It should not be news to anyone that women composers have been neglected in performance over the centuries. While BCG has performed many compositions written by women, it is difficult to appreciate the diversity and scope of women’s contributions to the field when they are only lightly sprinkled into a season’s programs. Just after our June 2019 concerts I began doing research to increase my own familiarity with both women composers and their works. With the help of the Internet and two trusted advisers on our board, I perused hundreds of scores composed by women across the globe. In a few cases I “rediscovered” favorite composers represented on prior concerts. Then I went about “discovering” many other wonderful composers. Simple keyword searches turned up lists compiled by organizations and individuals just for this purpose. And I kept an eye out for the programs of colleagues, so I could look up the names I was unfamiliar with. More often than not, one search would lead down a path to many other composers, and soon I was swamped with options. Women composers are there, in abundance, and have been throughout history.
The hardest part, after looking at and listening to myriad pieces, was to narrow down the choices to a pleasing, coherent program. After some false starts, I decided that it would make sense to survey composers from around the world on the first half of the concert, then feature Americans on the second. There is simply not enough space here to go into depth on each of the women represented, so I encourage you to take your program home and do your own searches to learn more about the composers whose works you liked.
We’ll move chronologically, beginning in the 12th century with Hildegard of Bingen. The German Benedictine abbess was a Christian mystic and visionary, as well as writer, composer, and philosopher. She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony. O viridissima virgo is one such example of her melodic setting of a prayer to the Virgin Mary. I have added some drones and simple harmonies in the hope of slightly enhancing the music for a choral setting.
Isabella Leonarda is another woman who was able to create music—and have it survive—due to her position as mother superior at a convent. Born to a wealthy family in 17th-century Novarra, Italy, she is known to have written nearly 200 works over the last 60 years of her life. Scholars believe that she didn’t begin composing regularly until the age of 50, and it is these later works for which she is known today. Her motet Alma Redemptoris Mater was originally composed for a 4-part choir of women’s voices for performance in the convent, but we use an arrangement for mixed voices. The motet is in four distinct sections, each with its own meter and musical flavor.
Born 45 years before Leonarda, in Ferrara, Italy, Vittoria Aleotti also had a privileged upbringing. She developed an interest in music after listening to her older sister’s lessons. Her talent on the harpsichord became evident at the age of 7, and she was sent to study at Ferrara’s San Vito, a convent famous for fostering young musical talent. By the age of 14, Vittoria chose to enter the convent and a life of service. Io v’amo vita mia is from her first and only collection of madrigals, published when she was about 18. Nothing is known of her after this point, but scholars believe there’s more to the story. A woman named Raffaella Aleotti, originally thought to be Vittoria’s sister, published a book of sacred motets soon after the madrigals appeared. Many now believe that Vittoria changed her name upon entering the convent. Raffaella became well known as an exceptional organist and teacher at the convent.
Fanny Mendelssohn was the oldest of four children born into a prominent family of businessmen and bankers. She first studied piano with her mother, who had been trained in the Berliner-Bach tradition, and by the age of 13 could play all 24 of Bach’s preludes and fugues from memory. In 1820 she was sent, along with her brother Felix, to study at the Sing-Akademie in Berlin with Carl Friedrich Zelter. Both received composition lessons from Zelter, who seemed quite impressed with Fanny’s talent. Somewhat later, in a letter to Goethe, Zelter gave Fanny’s skill as a pianist the highest praise for a woman at the time: “She plays like a man.” But the era’s prevailing attitudes limited her ability to be taken seriously as a composer. Her father recognized that Felix might have a career as a musician, but that for Fanny “it must only be an ornament.” Schöne Fremde is an image-filled poem by Joseph von Eichendorff. It was set by various composers of the day, including Schumann. Fanny’s version, a largely homophonic presentation of the text, skillfully employs the harmonic conventions of the era.
Heyr þú oss hymnum á is the first piece I’ve ever performed in the Icelandic language. Written for a 2005 concert series in the capital city Reykjavík, it sets four verses of an Icelandic psalm from the 16th century. Its composer, 42-year-old Anna Thorvaldsdottir, is a rising star, currently composer-in-residence for the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. She received her MS and PhD from UC San Diego, going on to win the Nordic Council Music Prize in 2012. The New York Philharmonic commissioned her to compose the symphonic poem Metacosmos, which was premiered in April 2018.
Born in Liepāja, Latvia to a math teacher who was also a choir conductor, Selga Mence went on to study musicology in conservatory, where she began composing. Since 2004 she has been the head of the composition department at the Latvian Academy of Music. She is known primarily for her choral music, and many Latvian choirs have achieved victory at international competitions with her works. Though she often uses Latvian folk melodies and texts, her style tends to blur the line between folk-song arrangements and original compositions. One such example is Kalējs kala debesis (Blacksmith forges in the sky), which sets four lines from a Latvian folktale. The driving rhythms and syncopated melodies give this piece a propulsive energy that is very exciting.
Chen Yi was born and raised in Guangzhou, China. She is part of a talented family—her parents were doctors and musicians, and her siblings have gone on to music careers in China. After receiving her MA in music composition from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, she moved to New York. In 2006, she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and she has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Today, she and her husband, composer Zhou Long, are professors of composition at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. Distance Can’t Keep Us Two Apart is the result of the Raymond Brock commission from the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) in 2012. Chen selected two lines from a Tang Dynasty poem that have been used popularly today among Chinese people, “If I have a friend who knows my heart, Distance can’t keep us two apart.” She hopes that her piece can “serve as a bridge to improve understanding between people from all cultures.”
Bulgarian-born Dobrinka Tabakova, after winning an international prize in music at age 14, was eventually awarded a PhD in composition from the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she still lives today. This setting of the Marian antiphon Alma Redemptoris Mater was commissioned by Merton College, Oxford to celebrate the college’s 750th anniversary. The composer writes:
Like the resonance left after the ringing of large bells, the opening triad becomes the background in this antiphon. The triad lingers, then other triads are juxtaposed in dissonance, only for the initial sound to prevail. On the background of this triad haze, the original Alma Redemptoris Mater Gregorian chant emerges. The work is the transition between this initial state and a re-imagined chant, which gradually takes over at the end of the piece, as if mirroring the opening.
Stephanie Martin has been active in Toronto’s lively music scene for over 25 years. She is a professor of music at York University. She founded the Pax Christi Chorale in 1997 and was their Artistic Director for the next 20 years. She also worked for six years as music director and organist at the Church of Saint Mary Magdalene in Toronto. This led her to compose Four Motets for Small Choirs, one of which is the communion anthem O Sacrum Convivium. I find the flow of her simple, direct style quite beguiling.
This is the fourth time in the past few years I have programmed the music of Cecilia McDowall, so perhaps her name will be familiar to you. McDowall has been shortlisted eight times for the British Composer Awards. Her commissions have included works for the BBC Singers, the Westminster Cathedral Choir, and the King’s Singers. Most recently, her Da Vinci Requiem was premiered in May of this year to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death. In it she pairs extracts from the Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci with the texts of the Latin Requiem mass. The skies in their magnificence, composed in 2008 for the English Music Festival, sets a part of Thomas Traherne’s poem Wonder. The long lines of its 8-part chorus express awe and joy at the beauty of the skies.
After intermission we feature composers from the United States. We begin with Rosephanye Powell. Born in Alabama, she received her doctorate from Florida State University in vocal performance and now teaches voice at Auburn University. As a composer she is widely published, and her well-crafted arrangements of spirituals have become standard repertoire for many choirs. However, Dr. Powell’s output extends beyond arrangements. Non nobis, Domine (Not to us, O Lord, but to your name be the glory) sets up a rhythmic ostinato in the lower voices, over which the upper voices sing a hard-driving melody. The energetic pulse continues relentlessly right up to the final chord.
Another one of my go-to composers in recent seasons has been Nancy Wertsch. Every time we perform her music, I become more convinced that she ought to be much better known. Case in point is her setting of the famous poem Charm Me Asleep by Robert Herrick (1591–1674). The rich harmonies and abrupt shifts in tonality she employs make the music very captivating to my ear. Being herself a professional chorister in New York, as well as a mezzo-soprano soloist, she has a real understanding for what will work for voices and what will excite both singers and listeners.
I met Linda Kachelmeier and Elizabeth Alexander (who appears later in this program) when they shared a vendor booth to promote their music at the ACDA national convention last March. Both composers are based in St. Paul, Minnesota, and have worked with the various choral groups in the thriving musical culture there. In her bio Linda mentions being influenced by medieval chant and polyphony as well as gospel and folk music. Others have described her music as “austere but also luscious and fun,” an apt characterization of Come Away. Kachelmeier has taken as her text a love song from John Dowland’s First Book of Songes (1597), but given it a distinctly modern feel in this choral setting.
A name to watch out for in coming years is Melissa Dunphy. Born and raised in Australia, she emigrated to the United States in 2003 and went on to become an acclaimed composer specializing in vocal, political, and theatrical music. She has had connections here in the Bay Area as a composer-in-residence for Volti, and her composition What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach has been performed by Chanticleer and many other groups nationally. She received her PhD in music composition from the University of Pennsylvania and currently teaches at Rutgers University. Beyond this she has a large Instagram following for photos of her cats and Halloween costumes, performs in a rock duo with her husband, and is an acclaimed actor, described in the Philadelphia Inquirer as “unquestionably the city’s leading Shakespeare ingénue.” Whew! Together sets three verses from Chapter 2 of the Book of Acts espousing the common good and sharing with others. A program for the Boston Choral Ensemble described the music as “beautiful, clear, and direct, without being trite or overly sentimental.”
Dale Trumbore is another composer on the rise, as evidenced by the premiere of her Professional Composers Commission at the ACDA convention this year. You may recall our performance of Spiritus Mundi at last June’s “Ruby Necklace” concert. Trumbore received her Master’s degree in composition from USC and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two cats. Love is a Sickness was a winner of the 2006 Chanticleer Student Composer Competition. It’s a delightful romp, combining swing music with the Old English poetry of Samuel Daniel (1562–1619).
Eleanor Aversa is a professor of composition at Berklee College of Music in Boston. She grew up studying classical and jazz piano and began composing as a teenager. She has long worked as a collaborative pianist, accompanying recitals from Carnegie Hall to the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Gesundheit! was written for the San Francisco Choral Artists when she was their Composer-Not-In-Residence in 2013. I thought it might be a fitting complement to Love is a Sickness.
David Allan Evans (b. 1940) is the former poet laureate of South Dakota. His charming poem Waking Up provides the text of Elizabeth Alexander’s equally charming piece Same Birds. Alexander was born in South Carolina, received her doctorate in Music Composition from Cornell University in 1987, and now lives in Saint Paul. Although her commissions include works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and solo instruments, she is best known for her choral works. She describes her style as moving “with ease between concert stage, choir loft, and jam session.” Same Birds is a great example of this blend of styles. It clearly has roots in, or pays homage to, folk music. Yet at the same time this is sophisticated art music with clever rhythms and skilled writing for chorus.
We’ll conclude the show with a nod to Alice Parker, one of the best known and loved composer/arrangers of the past 70 years. She began making a name for herself when she collaborated with Robert Shaw on arrangements for the Robert Shaw Chorale from 1948 to 1968. She later went on to found Melodious Accord, Inc., a small non-profit that brings together composers, performers, and listeners in the creation of music. She believes that melody provides the possibility for accord, rather than discord, when people sing together. Still going strong at age 93, Ms. Parker continues to lead the professional choir Musicians of Melodious Accord, which has recorded 14 albums, and she leads workshops around the country. Her catalog lists over 500 pieces of music, including operas, song cycles, cantatas, choral suites, and anthems. Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal is one of the gems from her early Robert Shaw Chorale recordings.
We hope you enjoy learning about all of these emerging composers from around the world. In our continual quest for balance (I am a Libra, after all), our March, 2020 program will feature the grand oratorio Elijah, written by the brother of one of tonight’s composers. Felix Mendelssohn created this work with both the German text and English translation side-by-side, so it would work well in either language. We will be recreating the premiere performance, given by the Birmingham Festival, singing in English and accompanied by the period instruments of Jubilate Orchestra. See you then!
This is the fourth time in the past few years I have programmed the music of Cecilia McDowall, so perhaps her name will be familiar to you. McDowall has been shortlisted eight times for the British Composer Awards. Her commissions have included works for the BBC Singers, the Westminster Cathedral Choir, and the King’s Singers. Most recently, her Da Vinci Requiem was premiered in May of this year to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death. In it she pairs extracts from the Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci with the texts of the Latin Requiem mass. The skies in their magnificence, composed in 2008 for the English Music Festival, sets a part of Thomas Traherne’s poem Wonder. The long lines of its 8-part chorus express awe and joy at the beauty of the skies.
After intermission we feature composers from the United States. We begin with Rosephanye Powell. Born in Alabama, she received her doctorate from Florida State University in vocal performance and now teaches voice at Auburn University. As a composer she is widely published, and her well-crafted arrangements of spirituals have become standard repertoire for many choirs. However, Dr. Powell’s output extends beyond arrangements. Non nobis, Domine (Not to us, O Lord, but to your name be the glory) sets up a rhythmic ostinato in the lower voices, over which the upper voices sing a hard-driving melody. The energetic pulse continues relentlessly right up to the final chord.
Another one of my go-to composers in recent seasons has been Nancy Wertsch. Every time we perform her music, I become more convinced that she ought to be much better known. Case in point is her setting of the famous poem Charm Me Asleep by Robert Herrick (1591–1674). The rich harmonies and abrupt shifts in tonality she employs make the music very captivating to my ear. Being herself a professional chorister in New York, as well as a mezzo-soprano soloist, she has a real understanding for what will work for voices and what will excite both singers and listeners.
I met Linda Kachelmeier and Elizabeth Alexander (who appears later in this program) when they shared a vendor booth to promote their music at the ACDA national convention last March. Both composers are based in St. Paul, Minnesota, and have worked with the various choral groups in the thriving musical culture there. In her bio Linda mentions being influenced by medieval chant and polyphony as well as gospel and folk music. Others have described her music as “austere but also luscious and fun,” an apt characterization of Come Away. Kachelmeier has taken as her text a love song from John Dowland’s First Book of Songes (1597), but given it a distinctly modern feel in this choral setting.
A name to watch out for in coming years is Melissa Dunphy. Born and raised in Australia, she emigrated to the United States in 2003 and went on to become an acclaimed composer specializing in vocal, political, and theatrical music. She has had connections here in the Bay Area as a composer-in-residence for Volti, and her composition What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach has been performed by Chanticleer and many other groups nationally. She received her PhD in music composition from the University of Pennsylvania and currently teaches at Rutgers University. Beyond this she has a large Instagram following for photos of her cats and Halloween costumes, performs in a rock duo with her husband, and is an acclaimed actor, described in the Philadelphia Inquirer as “unquestionably the city’s leading Shakespeare ingénue.” Whew! Together sets three verses from Chapter 2 of the Book of Acts espousing the common good and sharing with others. A program for the Boston Choral Ensemble described the music as “beautiful, clear, and direct, without being trite or overly sentimental.”
Dale Trumbore is another composer on the rise, as evidenced by the premiere of her Professional Composers Commission at the ACDA convention this year. You may recall our performance of Spiritus Mundi at last June’s “Ruby Necklace” concert. Trumbore received her Master’s degree in composition from USC and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two cats. Love is a Sickness was a winner of the 2006 Chanticleer Student Composer Competition. It’s a delightful romp, combining swing music with the Old English poetry of Samuel Daniel (1562–1619).
Eleanor Aversa is a professor of composition at Berklee College of Music in Boston. She grew up studying classical and jazz piano and began composing as a teenager. She has long worked as a collaborative pianist, accompanying recitals from Carnegie Hall to the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Gesundheit! was written for the San Francisco Choral Artists when she was their Composer-Not-In-Residence in 2013. I thought it might be a fitting complement to Love is a Sickness.
David Allan Evans (b. 1940) is the former poet laureate of South Dakota. His charming poem Waking Up provides the text of Elizabeth Alexander’s equally charming piece Same Birds. Alexander was born in South Carolina, received her doctorate in Music Composition from Cornell University in 1987, and now lives in Saint Paul. Although her commissions include works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and solo instruments, she is best known for her choral works. She describes her style as moving “with ease between concert stage, choir loft, and jam session.” Same Birds is a great example of this blend of styles. It clearly has roots in, or pays homage to, folk music. Yet at the same time this is sophisticated art music with clever rhythms and skilled writing for chorus.
We’ll conclude the show with a nod to Alice Parker, one of the best known and loved composer/arrangers of the past 70 years. She began making a name for herself when she collaborated with Robert Shaw on arrangements for the Robert Shaw Chorale from 1948 to 1968. She later went on to found Melodious Accord, Inc., a small non-profit that brings together composers, performers, and listeners in the creation of music. She believes that melody provides the possibility for accord, rather than discord, when people sing together. Still going strong at age 93, Ms. Parker continues to lead the professional choir Musicians of Melodious Accord, which has recorded 14 albums, and she leads workshops around the country. Her catalog lists over 500 pieces of music, including operas, song cycles, cantatas, choral suites, and anthems. Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal is one of the gems from her early Robert Shaw Chorale recordings.
We hope you enjoy learning about all of these emerging composers from around the world. In our continual quest for balance (I am a Libra, after all), our March, 2020 program will feature the grand oratorio Elijah, written by the brother of one of tonight’s composers. Felix Mendelssohn created this work with both the German text and English translation side-by-side, so it would work well in either language. We will be recreating the premiere performance, given by the Birmingham Festival, singing in English and accompanied by the period instruments of Jubilate Orchestra. See you then!
