Collaborations – March 2026
Program notes by Sanford Dole
Once again we are delighted to have you join us! In an effort to add variety to our season, I thought it would be fun to explore the repertoire for chorus accompanied by solo instruments. Over the years, as I’ve researched programming ideas, I’ve occasionally come across pieces by 20th- and 21st-century composers that include single instruments. It didn’t seem cost effective, however, to hire a player to be at a concert to play only one piece. That led me to look for enough works in this category that we have each of our instrumentalists play multiple times.
We begin with a classic. Among J.S. Bach’s vast output, his surviving motets—traditionally thought to number six, but now scholars have authenticated nine—have become staples with choirs such as ours and appear frequently on choral concerts around the world. Among these, Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden (Praise the Lord, all ye nations), is the only one restricted to four voices throughout and the only one to omit a chorale. In fact, scholars now debate whether this work is, in fact, by Bach. But nobody knows who else might have written it, so we’re sticking with Bach. Although it is generally assumed that all of the motets would have been performed with accompaniment, Lobet den Herrn is the only one to have an independent continuo part written into the score, making it ideal for the theme of today’s concert.
The motet sets the first two verses of Psalm 117 and can be viewed as having four parts. The first two parts are lively fugues, each introduced in the soprano, with alto, tenor, and bass following on. The third section is calmer and relatively homophonic but builds in intensity as it leads to the fourth section, a glorious fugue in triple meter on the word “Alleluia.” A continuo line, played by the cello, is heard throughout, providing an anchor for the tonality. While the cello often doubles the basses, it is frequently independent as well.
Martin Luther’s foreword to Georg Rhau’s Symphoniae Iucundae (1538) includes the line “Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure of the world.” This sentiment leads off The Art of Music by English composer Paul Ayres. You may recall that several years ago we performed Ayres’s Messyah, a wacky send-up of Handel’s Messiah. For today’s piece, a commission from Texas Lutheran University Choir, Ayres has taken excerpts from Luther’s complete foreword and set them for choir, accompanied by, of all things, marimba. The sound of the marimba adds a somewhat humorous effect to the choir’s extolling of the virtues of music. Adding to the levity, the work concludes with the spoken lines “A person who does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.”
Indian American composer Reena Esmail weaves together the traditions of Hindustani and Western classical music. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she received degrees in composition from The Juilliard School and Yale School of Music. She later received a Fulbright-Nehru grant to study Hindustani music in India. She writes of this meditative piece:
We begin with a classic. Among J.S. Bach’s vast output, his surviving motets—traditionally thought to number six, but now scholars have authenticated nine—have become staples with choirs such as ours and appear frequently on choral concerts around the world. Among these, Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden (Praise the Lord, all ye nations), is the only one restricted to four voices throughout and the only one to omit a chorale. In fact, scholars now debate whether this work is, in fact, by Bach. But nobody knows who else might have written it, so we’re sticking with Bach. Although it is generally assumed that all of the motets would have been performed with accompaniment, Lobet den Herrn is the only one to have an independent continuo part written into the score, making it ideal for the theme of today’s concert.
The motet sets the first two verses of Psalm 117 and can be viewed as having four parts. The first two parts are lively fugues, each introduced in the soprano, with alto, tenor, and bass following on. The third section is calmer and relatively homophonic but builds in intensity as it leads to the fourth section, a glorious fugue in triple meter on the word “Alleluia.” A continuo line, played by the cello, is heard throughout, providing an anchor for the tonality. While the cello often doubles the basses, it is frequently independent as well.
Martin Luther’s foreword to Georg Rhau’s Symphoniae Iucundae (1538) includes the line “Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure of the world.” This sentiment leads off The Art of Music by English composer Paul Ayres. You may recall that several years ago we performed Ayres’s Messyah, a wacky send-up of Handel’s Messiah. For today’s piece, a commission from Texas Lutheran University Choir, Ayres has taken excerpts from Luther’s complete foreword and set them for choir, accompanied by, of all things, marimba. The sound of the marimba adds a somewhat humorous effect to the choir’s extolling of the virtues of music. Adding to the levity, the work concludes with the spoken lines “A person who does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.”
Indian American composer Reena Esmail weaves together the traditions of Hindustani and Western classical music. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she received degrees in composition from The Juilliard School and Yale School of Music. She later received a Fulbright-Nehru grant to study Hindustani music in India. She writes of this meditative piece:
She Will Transform You is centered around a beautiful poem of Indian American author Neelanjana Banerjee. She speaks about the beautiful relationship of an immigrant and her child to their country of origin, and the significant role a child from both cultures has in bridging the divide between them. As a child of immigrants, I have felt both that distance—of being the ‘other’ in both America and India—and also the resonance of being at home wherever I am. The piece moves in and out of a Hindustani raga called Rageshree—which has such a lush resonance about it, and is also harmonically grounded in an unusual way (with the 4th instead of the more common 5th, which makes our ear feel like it’s never quite ‘home’)—so it has both a sense of belonging and distance. It’s those two feelings—of belonging and distance—and the journey between them, that I wanted to explore in this work.
Seattle-based Joan Szymko is a choral conductor, music educator, and composer with over 100 published choral works. In 1994 she founded the women’s choir Viriditas Vocal Ensemble, for whom Nada te turbe was written. She writes:
The prayer “Nada te Turbe” was found in the breviary of the 16th cent. Christian mystic and saint, Teresa de Ávila (1515–1582), written in her own hand. Her words have consoled countless numbers of people and were of particular help to me in times of personal struggle. I wanted the audience to be able to hear Teresa’s message in real time, directly from the singer—not by reading program notes—so I made a conscious decision to include some key phrases in English in my setting.
Abbie Betinis is a leading light of the thriving choral music scene in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area. Known for her expressive text-setting, Abbie’s many vocal commissions include new works for Cantus, Conspirare, and the Dale Warland Singers, among many others. She composed To the Evening Star in 2005 to a text by William Blake (1757–1827). Betinis notes:
Blake is known as a visionary mystic who proclaimed the supremacy of the imagination over the rationalism and materialism of the 18th-century. This musical setting, both intimately tender and fiercely vehement, is meant to depict our human vulnerability as we passionately encounter all of life’s beauty.
39-year-old Jacob Narverud is an American choral composer and arranger of Norwegian descent. A native of Kansas, Jake is the Founding Artistic Director of the Tallgrass Chamber Choir, an ensemble of musicians from across the Great Plains. Sunflower, composed in 2022 for the East Texas State University Choir, also sets a text by William Blake. The publisher advertises it thusly:
Thought-provoking text is laced with hope in this thoughtfully crafted work for mixed chorus with solo cello accompaniment. The cello represents the sunflower and symbolizes humans bound to earth but pining for immortality. This stunning setting brims with text painting, delicious dissonance, and yearning suspended harmonies.
One of South Korea’s leading composers, Hye-Young Cho is renowned for her choral works, which have been performed by nearly every choir in her country. She is currently the resident composer for the Incheon City Chorale and previously served as the president of the Korean Choral Composition Association. Golden Field was composed in 2025 and sets a poem written 100 years earlier by one of Korea’s most beloved poets, Sowol Kim (1902–1934). The poem combines the tragic sadness of losing a loved one who has passed away with the vibrant vitality of spring, making us feel even more sorrowful. The two-faced emotions in the poem are reflected by incorporating two different ancient Korean rhythms and melodic styles. Although Cho only scored the piece for flute, oboe, and piano (four hands), I have arranged for all five of our collaborators to participate in this piece as a fun way to kick off the second half of our concert.
In March 2011, during our Pacific Passions concert featuring West Coast composers, BCG performed Kevin A. Memley’s first published work, Ave Maria. Since then Kevin has published over 70 works, and today is his third appearance on our concerts. Bradley Ellingboe, Director of Choral Activities at University of New Mexico (and Elijah in our performance of Mendelssohn’s epic oratorio in 2020) has said, “Kevin offers refreshing sound that is both progressive and familiar.” Anadyomene is the first in a set of three songs called “Reflections on Humanity by Sara Teasdale,” which explore themes of spiritual longing, love, and enlightenment. It is scored for choir, oboe, and piano. In Greek, “anadyomene” means “rising from the sea”. The poem’s title is an allusion to Venus Anadyomene, one of the iconic representations of the goddess Venus (Aphrodite in the Greek pantheon), best known to us from a Botticelli painting depicting the goddess rising from the sea on a giant scallop shell. The sense of rising is reflected in the opening motive, which recurs throughout, where the sopranos begin on a low A and ascend upward to a D an octave-and-a-half higher.
Raised as a choral singer in London, Ontario, Sarah Quartel has become one of Canada’s most celebrated and widely performed choral composers. Her exclusive publisher, Oxford University Press, lists over 100 titles. Quartel’s website describes her as…
In March 2011, during our Pacific Passions concert featuring West Coast composers, BCG performed Kevin A. Memley’s first published work, Ave Maria. Since then Kevin has published over 70 works, and today is his third appearance on our concerts. Bradley Ellingboe, Director of Choral Activities at University of New Mexico (and Elijah in our performance of Mendelssohn’s epic oratorio in 2020) has said, “Kevin offers refreshing sound that is both progressive and familiar.” Anadyomene is the first in a set of three songs called “Reflections on Humanity by Sara Teasdale,” which explore themes of spiritual longing, love, and enlightenment. It is scored for choir, oboe, and piano. In Greek, “anadyomene” means “rising from the sea”. The poem’s title is an allusion to Venus Anadyomene, one of the iconic representations of the goddess Venus (Aphrodite in the Greek pantheon), best known to us from a Botticelli painting depicting the goddess rising from the sea on a giant scallop shell. The sense of rising is reflected in the opening motive, which recurs throughout, where the sopranos begin on a low A and ascend upward to a D an octave-and-a-half higher.
Raised as a choral singer in London, Ontario, Sarah Quartel has become one of Canada’s most celebrated and widely performed choral composers. Her exclusive publisher, Oxford University Press, lists over 100 titles. Quartel’s website describes her as…
…deeply inspired by the life-changing relationships that can occur while making choral music. Sarah writes in a way that connects singer to singer, ensemble to conductor, and performer to audience. Ripple Effect sets a powerful combination of texts by Hildegard von Bingen and Mother Teresa. The main choir is accompanied by a small ensemble singing the word love with rippling ostinati and a solo cello contributing lyrical melodic lines and broken chords.
For Belgian Jan Moeyaert, choral singing has been a life-long passion. He began his musical training as a member of the Flanders Boys Choir and later studied musicology in London, where he immersed himself in the English choral tradition, both as a singer and organist. He has sung semi-professionally in early music and contemporary vocal ensembles for over 25 years. In 2007 he founded the Brussels Chamber Choir (BCC), together with his wife, Helen Cassano, who conducts the choir. He is the assistant conductor and composer-in-residence for BCC.
For a concert in 2016, BCC decided to program Eric Whitacre’s Cloudburst, which requires percussion instruments to provide effects. They decided (as I often do myself) to program other works with percussion and invited their friend from college days, Thomas Plessers, to play on the concert. Jan goes on to explain the genesis of his piece:
For a concert in 2016, BCC decided to program Eric Whitacre’s Cloudburst, which requires percussion instruments to provide effects. They decided (as I often do myself) to program other works with percussion and invited their friend from college days, Thomas Plessers, to play on the concert. Jan goes on to explain the genesis of his piece:
And I, being in-house composer, was commissioned to write something a little less serious to finish the concert with, as an encore so to speak. Although Thomas had already organized a vibraphone and a xylophone for the concert, he whispered in my ear that he had just purchased a gorgeous 5-octave marimba and that he’d love to bring it to the stage as well. I spent an afternoon in his house, falling in love with the instrument. He showed me different sounds and playing techniques, and got me all inspired, so I set out to write my Fantasia—perhaps ‘for marimba and choir’ rather than ‘for choir and marimba’. Aiming to treat marimba and voices as equals, I decided against the use of a text, and to just let sounds and rhythms play out as a piece of “absolute” music—a fun piece, I hope.
We, too, are concluding our concert with Moeyaert’s Fantasia. It is indeed lighter and is a fun way to wrap up our “Collaborations.”
We hope you’ve been moved and entertained today! Music is a refuge as we all make our way through the difficult era in which we find ourselves. Seeking out musical performance is a chance for us to take a break from the onslaught of information and images that bombard our daily lives. We hope this program has been an oasis in your life and that you’ll join us again on June 6th and 7th, when we present Outside the Bachs, a world tour of choral music from beyond the Western European tradition. The program promises to be another voyage of discovery, presenting composers from around the world, many of whom are less well known but deserving of our attention. Until then, we wish you good health, much joy, and happiness.