Home

Membership

Support

Past Seasons

History

Links to
Kindred Spirits

.

Concerts of our 58^th Season
Schedule to be determined

Fall 2006                                                                         
St. Francis in the Americas   Glenn McClure
     St. Francis in the Americas: A Caribbean Mass celebrates the marriage of Latin American cultures and the spiritual legacy of the medieval Italian saint, Francis of Assisi. Followers of "Il Poverello," the little poor man from Assisi, have left their mark on this hemisphere with cities named for the saint (San Francisco, Los Angeles) and customs such as the Christmas nativity scenes we see at holiday time. This concert mass sets several of Francis' writings into languages and musical styles of the New World. The instrumentation features steel drums (invented in the islands of Trinidad and Tobago in the mid 20th century) and other percussion instruments from Latin American traditions. Just as Francis said that his cathedral was the whole world, we see that his simple wisdom could not be limited to one language or musical tradition.
        Retrieved from the World Wide Web June 3, 2006: www.artforbrains.com/Composing/Current_Works

"How Virtue" Spanish Pronunciation Guide (mp4)

"How Virtue" Spanish Pronunciation Guide (mp3)

Missa Kenya   Paul Basler   
Paul Basler is on faculty at the University of Florida, where he teaches horn. He is also becoming known as a composer, both for choral and other media. Missa Kenya (Kenyan Mass) is by design a hybrid of the western classical tradition with African styles (Basler spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar in Nairobi, Kenya). As a mass, it uses the traditional Latin texts. The "Gloria" is a part of the Ordinary of the Latin Mass. Missa Kenya was published in 1995.
        Retrieved from the World Wide Web June 3, 2006: www.ku.edu/~cmed/rehnotes/basler.html

All concerts are funded in part 
by a grant from the 
Pennsylvania Council on the Arts 
and a grant from the 
Centre County Community Foundation

Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service)   Ernest Bloch                
     A Swiss composer who moved to noise-based composition from neo-classical beginnings. Bloch was a composer of psychologically profound works who was greatly influenced by world music (Hebrew melody, Southeast Asian music, and Tibetan music) in creating a totally original music with a traditional fluidity of inflection. His later works, like the "Sinfonia Breve" (1952), written when he was 72, developed a bold, energetic dissonance. ~ Blue Gene Tyranny, All Music Guide
     During his tenure as Director of the San Francisco Conservatory (1925-30), Bloch struck up a friendship with Cantor Reuben Rinder of the Temple Emanuel congregation. It was this association that brought about the commission for Bloch's Avodath Hakodesh--Sacred Service (1930-35). As part of his preparations for composing the work, Bloch spent a year studying the synagogue music and Hebrew texts used for Saturday morning worship. Much of the work was written during the composer's return to his native Switzerland in the early 1930s.
     The Sacred Service, written for baritone, choir, and orchestra, comprises five main sections--"Meditation," "Kedushah" (Sanctification), "Silent Devotion and Response," "Returning the Scroll to the Ark," and "Adoration"--further divided into a total of twenty-six distinct parts. The work also incorporates a recitation of the Kaddish (Prayer for the Dead); in synagogue performances, it is often the rabbi who does this reading. As in the case of any great religious work, the Sacred Service transports the attentive listener beyond the specificity of one set of beliefs into a greater universality; in this regard it ranks as one of Bloch's supreme legacies. ~ All Music Guide
        Retrieved from the World Wide Web June 3, 2006: www.answers.com/topic/avodath-hakodesh-sacred-service-for-baritone-chorus-orchestra-or-piano-or-orga