Last night I went to a kickoff concert of the upcoming Carmel Bach Festival, two weeks of wonderful music, this year featuring Bach's St. John Passion and two Beethoven symphonies, the Fifth and the glorious Ninth with its Ode to Joy, among so much other fabulous fare.
This concert featured the Chorus, made up of local singers—the first time they've gotten their own showcase (if you don't count the outdoor, twenty-minute "Tower Concert" that precedes the Monday-evening main event, and that only started last year). It was great! It featured music set to the words of Shakespeare, and it was all new to me.
I especially enjoyed the work of a composer I'd never heard of who has spent his career devoted to Shakespeare, Matthew Harris (b. 1956). He apparently enjoys turning to all manner of music traditions for inspiration. Here is a video, featuring the Pacific Lutheran University Choir in 2020, of three of those songs of his, two of which, the first and the last, the Chorus performed last night. The last one definitely had me tapping my toes.
They also performed a couple of songs composed by the British jazz pianist George Shearing (1919–2011), which were delightful in a different, jazzy way. And here's a longer video of such, performed by the City of London Choir at St. Giles Cripplegate Church in June 2021 (just as pandemic restrictions were loosening—I bet people were glad to be there among such joyful sounds):
I am now looking forward to the next two weeks of music. Especially the Ode to Joy, which we can no doubt use more of these days...
No comments:
Post a Comment