Outside the Bachs – June 2026
Program notes by Sanford Dole
Over the years the majority of the repertoire we have performed has come from Western Europe and North America. For the concluding concert of our 47th season I decided to look further afield, for music by composers from North, East, and South of the European and American mainstays. I’ve organized the program geographically: we start in Iceland, then continue through Scandinavia before moving through Eastern Europe and Russia before arriving in Asia. Later we’ll move to the Southern Hemisphere, then conclude in the Middle East.
Bára Grímsdóttir is an Icelandic composer who is also known for her work in preserving ancient Icelandic traditions of folk singing. A graduate of Reykjavik College of Music, she did post-graduate studies in composing at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. Grímsdóttir has served as the president of the Iðunn Folk Music Society and has performed widely with her husband, English folk singer Chris Foster. Cantate Domino is a rollicking setting of Psalm 149 set largely in 7/8 meter. It was composed in 2021 for the Icelandic chamber choir Hljómeyki.
Wilhelm Stenhammar is considered to be one of Sweden’s most important composers at the turn of the 20th century. A skilled pianist and conductor, Stenhammar was artistic director and chief conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the first full-time professional orchestra in Sweden, from 1906 to 1922. Adept in a variety of genres, he wrote symphonies, concertos, and much chamber music. September is the first in a set of Three Choral Ballads, and has become much beloved among Swedish choral enthusiasts.
Contemporary Swedish composer Ulrika Emanuelsson graduated from the Academy of Music in Malmö in 2007. She, too, has written in many genres—chamber ensemble, orchestra, opera, oratorios, requiems, theater music, film—but her emphasis is on choral music. She composed Rösten ur mörkret sjunger (The voice from the darkness sings) in 2000. The piece sets a poem by Göran Sonnevi, one of the most esteemed poets of modern Sweden. Running eighth-note figures undulate through the opening lines, which speak of faces emerging from the darkness. The texture becomes more homophonic as the faces declare who they are: “I am an oozing wound… an April day… everything one needs… I am one voice among many.” A chattering figure accompanies the signs of spring. The opening undulating motive returns before the voices go silent, one by one.
Widely considered one of the leading composers of the Romantic era, Edvard Grieg brought national identity to Norway in his compositions, much as Jean Sibelius did for Finland. The most celebrated person born in Bergen, Grieg is best known for his incidental music to Peer Gynt. My personal favorite is the Holberg Suite, for string orchestra. He composed Ave Maris Stella in 1893 as a solo song, a serene setting of the ancient Marian text. Five years later he created this choral arrangement, utilizing rich harmonies and homophonic textures.
We conclude our stay in Scandinavia with a rousing anthem by Norwegian composer Knut Nystedt. He founded the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir in 1950 and conducted it until 1990. He also founded and conducted the Schola Cantorum from 1964 to 1985. Nystedt was born into a Christian home in Oslo, and his major compositions for chorus and soloists are mainly based on Biblical texts. Cry Out and Shout is a triumphant setting of a passage from Isaiah 12, which features the sopranos and altos often singing antiphonally with the tenors and basses.
Traveling east, our next set begins and ends with upbeat Russian music. In between we make stops in Lithuania, Ukraine, and Hungary. We start with one of my go-to Russian composers, Pavel Chesnokov. An exact contemporary of Rachmaninov—he died one year after his more famous countryman—Chesnokov was a big name in Russian church music. A graduate of the Moscow Conservatory of Music in conducting and composition, he taught church singing (chant) at the Moscow Synodal School, later becoming a professor of choral music at the Moscow Conservatory (1920–1944), and conducting several state choirs in Moscow. One of over 400 sacred works, Hvalite Ghospoda s nebes (Praise the Lord from the Heavens) is a Sunday communion anthem.
Prize-winning Lithuanian composer Kristina Vasiliauskaite was born and lives in Vilnius, where she has taught piano and composition since 1983. Although she has composed organ works for her brother Bernardas and a cello sonata for her brother Augustinas, as well as a few orchestral works, her output has primarily been vocal works for the church and for children. Kyrie is the opening of her Missa Brevis in Honorem Beatae Mariae Virginis, dating from 1992. This movement excites my ear with its extensive use of chromaticism and frequently shifting tonal centers.
Iryna Aleksiychuk is a composer, pianist, and organist who serves as Associate Professor of Composition at the National Academy of Music in Kyiv, Ukraine. She has received many commissions and awards, and performances of her music have frequently resulted in prizes at international choral festivals. For Holy Lord of Hosts she chose a text from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s Liturgy of the Faithful. The piece begins and ends with a very upbeat, rhythmically propulsive drive around a slower, calmer middle section.
Ernst von Dohnányi was born in Pozsony, Kingdom of Hungary, known today as Bratislava, Slovakia. He studied piano and composition at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music in Budapest, graduating at 19 years old without completing his studies. In 1920 he was appointed music director of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra, where he championed the music of Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. In 1949 he moved to Tallahassee, where he taught music for ten years at Florida State University and became a U.S. citizen in 1955. He is the grandfather of Christoph von Dohnányi, longtime music director of the Cleveland Orchestra. Influenced by Liszt and Brahms, his music subscribes to the Romantic idiom. Locus Iste (1930) was originally composed with organ accompaniment. When I encountered it, I was struck with the thought that the choral parts alone, without the long organ interludes between each phrase of text, would make for a fine a cappella motet. The publishers agreed, and we are now singing my arrangement. There are three bars that I composed, in Dohnányi’s style, to make a harmonic transition work from one phrase to another. Can you spot where they are?
Georgy Sviridov lived a couple of generations after Chesnokov and Rachmaninov. Like his musical forebears, he was strongly influenced by the traditional chant of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as the 19th century Romantic composers, especially Tchaikovsky. His orchestral works often celebrate elements of Russian culture. Sviridov was raised in the western Russian city of Kursk, south of Moscow, where in elementary school the first instrument he learned to play was the balalaika. He went on to study at the Leningrad Conservatory with Shostakovich. Known primarily for his vocal music, Sviridov is revered in Russia for the way his music reflects the Russian cultural landscape, setting texts by Pushkin and Pasternak, among others. A case in point is his choral poem Ladoga, based on a poem by Alexander Prokofiev (no relation to the composer) that vividly describes northern Russian life and nature around Lake Ladoga. In the final movement of this cycle, Balalaika, half of the choir sings nonsense syllables that imitate the strumming of the stringed instrument, as the other half sings about a summer picnic, “On a green meadow a balalaika began to play…Nastya began to dance.”
After intermission we move farther east as we present 21st-century works from Korea and Japan.
Over the last two decades Hyo-won Woo has emerged as a formidable voice in Korean choral music. She has been the composer-in-residence for the Seoul Ladies’ Singers since 1996, and over that time also collaborated with the Incheon City Chorale, both groups led by Hak-won Yoon, often called the godfather of the Korean choral world. She is currently on the faculty at the Chorus Center Academy in Seoul. Her works have been described as “groundbreaking,” blending traditional Korean musical elements and Western techniques. A good example is Cum Sancto Spiritu, the third movement from Woo’s Gloria, which combines western musical concepts and the traditional Korean musical scale, along with rhythmic patterns called Jangdan, meaning “long-short.”
Composer and conductor Ko Matsushita was born and raised in Tokyo. He graduated at the top of his class from the Kunitachi College of Music, Department of Composition, and went on to take the Chorus Conductor master course at the Kodaly Institute in Kecskemét, Hungary. He is currently the conductor and artistic director of 11(!) choirs, which are often invited to perform all over the world and have won awards at international competitions. Matsushita is a prolific composer and arranger, his output ranging from works based on traditional Japanese music to masses, motets, and etudes for choir. Composed in a distinctly Western style, Ubi caritas sets the traditional Antiphon for Maundy Thursday in a gently unfolding, mostly homophonic soundscape.
Born in New Zealand, Clare Maclean moved to Sydney, Australia to study composition with Peter Sculthorpe. Now living in New South Wales and teaching at Western Sydney University, she can be considered an Australian composer. As a student, Clare sang with the Sydney Chamber Choir and fell in love with choral music. This experience introduced her to Renaissance music, which often uses modal tonalities and contrapuntal textures. This in turn influenced her writing style. A case in point is her 1996 composition We Welcome Summer, setting a text by Australian poet and cartoonist Michael Leunig. Australian blogger Bronwyn aptly describes the work as:
Bára Grímsdóttir is an Icelandic composer who is also known for her work in preserving ancient Icelandic traditions of folk singing. A graduate of Reykjavik College of Music, she did post-graduate studies in composing at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. Grímsdóttir has served as the president of the Iðunn Folk Music Society and has performed widely with her husband, English folk singer Chris Foster. Cantate Domino is a rollicking setting of Psalm 149 set largely in 7/8 meter. It was composed in 2021 for the Icelandic chamber choir Hljómeyki.
Wilhelm Stenhammar is considered to be one of Sweden’s most important composers at the turn of the 20th century. A skilled pianist and conductor, Stenhammar was artistic director and chief conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the first full-time professional orchestra in Sweden, from 1906 to 1922. Adept in a variety of genres, he wrote symphonies, concertos, and much chamber music. September is the first in a set of Three Choral Ballads, and has become much beloved among Swedish choral enthusiasts.
Contemporary Swedish composer Ulrika Emanuelsson graduated from the Academy of Music in Malmö in 2007. She, too, has written in many genres—chamber ensemble, orchestra, opera, oratorios, requiems, theater music, film—but her emphasis is on choral music. She composed Rösten ur mörkret sjunger (The voice from the darkness sings) in 2000. The piece sets a poem by Göran Sonnevi, one of the most esteemed poets of modern Sweden. Running eighth-note figures undulate through the opening lines, which speak of faces emerging from the darkness. The texture becomes more homophonic as the faces declare who they are: “I am an oozing wound… an April day… everything one needs… I am one voice among many.” A chattering figure accompanies the signs of spring. The opening undulating motive returns before the voices go silent, one by one.
Widely considered one of the leading composers of the Romantic era, Edvard Grieg brought national identity to Norway in his compositions, much as Jean Sibelius did for Finland. The most celebrated person born in Bergen, Grieg is best known for his incidental music to Peer Gynt. My personal favorite is the Holberg Suite, for string orchestra. He composed Ave Maris Stella in 1893 as a solo song, a serene setting of the ancient Marian text. Five years later he created this choral arrangement, utilizing rich harmonies and homophonic textures.
We conclude our stay in Scandinavia with a rousing anthem by Norwegian composer Knut Nystedt. He founded the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir in 1950 and conducted it until 1990. He also founded and conducted the Schola Cantorum from 1964 to 1985. Nystedt was born into a Christian home in Oslo, and his major compositions for chorus and soloists are mainly based on Biblical texts. Cry Out and Shout is a triumphant setting of a passage from Isaiah 12, which features the sopranos and altos often singing antiphonally with the tenors and basses.
Traveling east, our next set begins and ends with upbeat Russian music. In between we make stops in Lithuania, Ukraine, and Hungary. We start with one of my go-to Russian composers, Pavel Chesnokov. An exact contemporary of Rachmaninov—he died one year after his more famous countryman—Chesnokov was a big name in Russian church music. A graduate of the Moscow Conservatory of Music in conducting and composition, he taught church singing (chant) at the Moscow Synodal School, later becoming a professor of choral music at the Moscow Conservatory (1920–1944), and conducting several state choirs in Moscow. One of over 400 sacred works, Hvalite Ghospoda s nebes (Praise the Lord from the Heavens) is a Sunday communion anthem.
Prize-winning Lithuanian composer Kristina Vasiliauskaite was born and lives in Vilnius, where she has taught piano and composition since 1983. Although she has composed organ works for her brother Bernardas and a cello sonata for her brother Augustinas, as well as a few orchestral works, her output has primarily been vocal works for the church and for children. Kyrie is the opening of her Missa Brevis in Honorem Beatae Mariae Virginis, dating from 1992. This movement excites my ear with its extensive use of chromaticism and frequently shifting tonal centers.
Iryna Aleksiychuk is a composer, pianist, and organist who serves as Associate Professor of Composition at the National Academy of Music in Kyiv, Ukraine. She has received many commissions and awards, and performances of her music have frequently resulted in prizes at international choral festivals. For Holy Lord of Hosts she chose a text from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s Liturgy of the Faithful. The piece begins and ends with a very upbeat, rhythmically propulsive drive around a slower, calmer middle section.
Ernst von Dohnányi was born in Pozsony, Kingdom of Hungary, known today as Bratislava, Slovakia. He studied piano and composition at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music in Budapest, graduating at 19 years old without completing his studies. In 1920 he was appointed music director of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra, where he championed the music of Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. In 1949 he moved to Tallahassee, where he taught music for ten years at Florida State University and became a U.S. citizen in 1955. He is the grandfather of Christoph von Dohnányi, longtime music director of the Cleveland Orchestra. Influenced by Liszt and Brahms, his music subscribes to the Romantic idiom. Locus Iste (1930) was originally composed with organ accompaniment. When I encountered it, I was struck with the thought that the choral parts alone, without the long organ interludes between each phrase of text, would make for a fine a cappella motet. The publishers agreed, and we are now singing my arrangement. There are three bars that I composed, in Dohnányi’s style, to make a harmonic transition work from one phrase to another. Can you spot where they are?
Georgy Sviridov lived a couple of generations after Chesnokov and Rachmaninov. Like his musical forebears, he was strongly influenced by the traditional chant of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as the 19th century Romantic composers, especially Tchaikovsky. His orchestral works often celebrate elements of Russian culture. Sviridov was raised in the western Russian city of Kursk, south of Moscow, where in elementary school the first instrument he learned to play was the balalaika. He went on to study at the Leningrad Conservatory with Shostakovich. Known primarily for his vocal music, Sviridov is revered in Russia for the way his music reflects the Russian cultural landscape, setting texts by Pushkin and Pasternak, among others. A case in point is his choral poem Ladoga, based on a poem by Alexander Prokofiev (no relation to the composer) that vividly describes northern Russian life and nature around Lake Ladoga. In the final movement of this cycle, Balalaika, half of the choir sings nonsense syllables that imitate the strumming of the stringed instrument, as the other half sings about a summer picnic, “On a green meadow a balalaika began to play…Nastya began to dance.”
After intermission we move farther east as we present 21st-century works from Korea and Japan.
Over the last two decades Hyo-won Woo has emerged as a formidable voice in Korean choral music. She has been the composer-in-residence for the Seoul Ladies’ Singers since 1996, and over that time also collaborated with the Incheon City Chorale, both groups led by Hak-won Yoon, often called the godfather of the Korean choral world. She is currently on the faculty at the Chorus Center Academy in Seoul. Her works have been described as “groundbreaking,” blending traditional Korean musical elements and Western techniques. A good example is Cum Sancto Spiritu, the third movement from Woo’s Gloria, which combines western musical concepts and the traditional Korean musical scale, along with rhythmic patterns called Jangdan, meaning “long-short.”
Composer and conductor Ko Matsushita was born and raised in Tokyo. He graduated at the top of his class from the Kunitachi College of Music, Department of Composition, and went on to take the Chorus Conductor master course at the Kodaly Institute in Kecskemét, Hungary. He is currently the conductor and artistic director of 11(!) choirs, which are often invited to perform all over the world and have won awards at international competitions. Matsushita is a prolific composer and arranger, his output ranging from works based on traditional Japanese music to masses, motets, and etudes for choir. Composed in a distinctly Western style, Ubi caritas sets the traditional Antiphon for Maundy Thursday in a gently unfolding, mostly homophonic soundscape.
Born in New Zealand, Clare Maclean moved to Sydney, Australia to study composition with Peter Sculthorpe. Now living in New South Wales and teaching at Western Sydney University, she can be considered an Australian composer. As a student, Clare sang with the Sydney Chamber Choir and fell in love with choral music. This experience introduced her to Renaissance music, which often uses modal tonalities and contrapuntal textures. This in turn influenced her writing style. A case in point is her 1996 composition We Welcome Summer, setting a text by Australian poet and cartoonist Michael Leunig. Australian blogger Bronwyn aptly describes the work as:
…languorous and lazy, just the way a hot summer day feels, when the air is thick and heavy and still and humid, and you don’t feel like doing anything except sitting on the back veranda with a fan blowing on you, a good book in one hand and a bowl of watermelon in the other
A scholarship winner to the Argentine Mozarteum, Brazilian composer Ernani Aguiar studied under various composers and conductors in South America and later in Europe. As a musicologist, he has specialized in the revival of works by composers from 18th-century Brazil, revising and editing them for modern performance. He has written a number of instrumental pieces, but his most famous works are his choral pieces. The fiery Salmo 150, composed in 1975, has proved a very popular piece among choral conductors worldwide. It features rhythmic backgrounds with very rapid articulations.
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, John Joubert was educated at Diocesan College in Rondebosch, South Africa, which was founded by the Anglican Church. Although he originally wanted to be a painter, his exposure at school to Elgar and to Anglican church music in general, particularly music by Parry and Stanford, pushed him to study composition at the South African College of Music. He later moved to England, where he received his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Durham. His works soon began to be performed and to attract favorable attention. There is no rose (1954) is one of three early choral works—along with the carol Torches, and the anthem O Lorde, the Maker of Al Thing—that achieved instant popularity and have become classics of the Anglican repertoire.
Carlos Guastavino, who died at age 88 in 2000, is considered one of Argentina’s foremost composers. His production amounted to over 500 works, most of them songs for piano and voice, many still unpublished. His style is quite conservative, always tonal and lushly romantic, and clearly influenced by Argentine folk music. This is in stark contrast to the works of his 20th-century Argentine contemporaries, such as Alberto Ginastera. In 1967 he composed Indianas, a set of six songs for vocal quartet and piano with texts by various Argentine poets. These poets penned metaphors that compare the elements of nature with love and life. The last of these, Una de Dos (One or the other), uses a river as the metaphor. The water acts as a mirror reflecting the young man’s image as he pines for his true love and the sky, which gives him solace.
Hands Are Knockin’ was composed by a Minneapolis-based composer and educator, Kyle Pederson. However, I feel this work fits the theme of our concert, because it was actually created as a collaborative effort with the children at the American International School in Muscat, Oman. At the start of the school year the students engage in a “Blessing of Hands” ceremony. It brings to light the power of our hands—hands that can heal, support, and comfort, but that can also hurt or push away. As Arabic is the official language of Oman, it seemed appropriate to use common Arabic phrases throughout. Alhamdulillah is a very common expression in Arabic and, like Alleluia, is used frequently to verbalize joy or gratitude.
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, John Joubert was educated at Diocesan College in Rondebosch, South Africa, which was founded by the Anglican Church. Although he originally wanted to be a painter, his exposure at school to Elgar and to Anglican church music in general, particularly music by Parry and Stanford, pushed him to study composition at the South African College of Music. He later moved to England, where he received his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Durham. His works soon began to be performed and to attract favorable attention. There is no rose (1954) is one of three early choral works—along with the carol Torches, and the anthem O Lorde, the Maker of Al Thing—that achieved instant popularity and have become classics of the Anglican repertoire.
Carlos Guastavino, who died at age 88 in 2000, is considered one of Argentina’s foremost composers. His production amounted to over 500 works, most of them songs for piano and voice, many still unpublished. His style is quite conservative, always tonal and lushly romantic, and clearly influenced by Argentine folk music. This is in stark contrast to the works of his 20th-century Argentine contemporaries, such as Alberto Ginastera. In 1967 he composed Indianas, a set of six songs for vocal quartet and piano with texts by various Argentine poets. These poets penned metaphors that compare the elements of nature with love and life. The last of these, Una de Dos (One or the other), uses a river as the metaphor. The water acts as a mirror reflecting the young man’s image as he pines for his true love and the sky, which gives him solace.
Hands Are Knockin’ was composed by a Minneapolis-based composer and educator, Kyle Pederson. However, I feel this work fits the theme of our concert, because it was actually created as a collaborative effort with the children at the American International School in Muscat, Oman. At the start of the school year the students engage in a “Blessing of Hands” ceremony. It brings to light the power of our hands—hands that can heal, support, and comfort, but that can also hurt or push away. As Arabic is the official language of Oman, it seemed appropriate to use common Arabic phrases throughout. Alhamdulillah is a very common expression in Arabic and, like Alleluia, is used frequently to verbalize joy or gratitude.
We hope our concert gives you joy and gratitude as we close out the concert season. As music is the universal language, we sing these works in prayer that the world comes together to find peace and harmony among nations. We look forward to seeing you again next season, when we’ll continue “Sharing the Joy of Choral Music.”