Dear Friends,
In crafting today’s program, I found myself reflecting upon the place music occupies in our lives. There is a certain rhythm to the ritual of music making – and yes, to music itself. We listen to it for enjoyment. It accompanies our ceremonies, both celebratory and memorial. It marks time as we accomplish chores, enjoy a meal with friends, or drive to the store. It amplifies our daily experiences. For us in the 21st century with seemingly unlimited access to streaming music, it is hard to find moments of silence.
However, even in the inundation of music as an active or passive soundtrack in our lives, music made by people in a live setting remains a special experience. No quality of speaker setup can accurately mimic the exchange of communication and feeling produced by live music. The sound of live voices – especially, I would argue – communicates something visceral, something familiar, and something human to any listener. Whether it is a parent singing to their child, the first hymn sung in church, the first song learned as a child, or a concert like the one we experience today, the act of making music together and experiencing live music together calls to each of us. It fulfills a sharing of humanity that we crave these days.
Quite literally, we experience music in the passing of each year. Some music stays with us throughout our lives as we return to old favorites. Some music is new and challenges us, and in it we find a new favorite. Some music is inextricably linked with memory and experience and calls us back immediately to times in our past. This is the power of music created, performed, and experienced.
Today’s composers join us from the 20th and 21st centuries of British and American choral music. They share a few attributes: first, a reverence for the poetry which they have set. Each composer on today’s program has encountered great texts, and in my opinion, has elevated these great texts with equally great music. Second, there is a shared optimism in the music of all these composers. From Jonathan Dove’s setting of Tennyson’s poetry, which ends with “Ring in the thousand years of peace,” to Aaron Copland’s setting of Horace Everett’s text in The Promise of Living, we cannot help but hear echoes of aspiration and memories of better times. Finally, there is nostalgia and hope intertwined in this poetry and in this music.
What we hope to offer you today is a chance to hear the echo of your own lives in these texts and compositions. We hope to mark this moment in time with this soundtrack. These pieces trace the passing of this year for us, and in them we have stored two months of experiences together. We open our circle and invite you, our community, into this program to hold, along with us, the experience of today as heard in this music. As always, we are grateful for your presence.
Fondly,
George Case
