2021-2022 Season
Together in Time and Space
Sacred & Profane’s 44th Season
Celebrate the joy of music making with Sacred & Profane, as we present our 44th Season with the excitement of singing together in person after a year of bringing you music virtually. We’ll explore the role music plays in our lives, whether by sparking our imaginations, connecting us to the unknown, or measuring the cycles of our world. Choral music brings us together, expresses our stories and identities, and provides the soundtrack of our daily lives and the places we live. Music makes our communities, and our communities make music. We are thrilled to be able to share music in person with our community again this season.
We are formulating our season with an abundance of caution to prioritize the health and safety of our singers, audiences, and communities. Events for the 2021–22 season are subject to change to comply with all public health guidelines. Keep-up-to-date with COVID safety precautions here.
SEASON TICKETS: SAVE 20% ON 3 CONCERTS
Season tickets allow for flexible attendance with big savings on General Admission tickets! Purchase once and enjoy either date and venue of one of each concert set in December, March, and May. Simply purchase a season pass and we'll hold your tickets for you at will-call for whichever date you prefer. Season tickets will only be available through December 16!
AUTUMN 2021
Musical Mystical: Angels Among Us
We welcome you to our season with beautiful music honoring the celestial image of the angel. While angels often represent holiday traditions, we’re excited to explore their musical representation as protectors and overseers of our earthly existence across many cultures in both spiritual and secular music. Our concert features music by contemporary Swedish composer Tina Andersson, Italian Renaissance nun Raffaella Aleotti, and Shawn Kirchner in his setting of the old American tune Angel Band. We’re honored to revisit Trevor Weston’s powerful Martyrs, co-commissioned in 2020, that weaves together text from the Psalms, Renaissance motets, and modern texts as a plea for protection and a warning about the senseless and unnecessary deaths caused by COVID-19 and by excessive police force against African Americans. We’re thrilled to present Karin Rehnqvist’s powerful Till Ängeln med de brinnande händerna with oboist Adrienne Malley, and Sten Källman’s Ayibobo/Angels, a medley of a Haitian ode to the saints and a Swedish hymn about the protection of angels.
December 17 & 18, 2021 | 8 pm
WINTER 2022
Rhythm of Time: Music For Choir and Piano
We measure both our experience of time and our experience of music. From organizing our days to connecting us to the cycles of life, the passing of time governs our lives, colors our musical language, and inspires our imaginations. Join us as we explore these temporal relationships through works for choir and piano by composers across the centuries—from the German Romanticism of Franz Schubert’s Der Tanz to Cyndi Lauper’s pop hit Time after Time (arranged for us by “the godfather of a cappella” Deke Sharon), and everything in between. The program features Swedish composer Eskil Hemberg’s Of Time and Life, English composers Benjamin Britten and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor—whose beautiful Summer is Gone depicts the turning of the seasons with musical anticipation—and San Francisco’s Conrad Susa. We are delighted to present several innovative pieces by women composers, including works by Zanaida Robles, Jocelyn Hagen, Dale Trumbore, Stacy Garrop, Rosephanye Powell, and our own assistant conductor, Edna Yeh.
March 12, 2022 | 8 pm
March 13, 2022 | 4 pm
SPRING 2022
Local Vocal: Celebrating Our Musical Bay Area
Join us in celebrating our own artistically vibrant Bay Area with a program featuring music by both well-known and emerging local composers. We are excited to present Winging Wildly, a three-movement setting of poems about birds by the Bay Area’s best-known composer of choral music, Kirke Mechem. This program will also include selections from Mark Winges’ mystical Missa Diapente and Gabriela Lena Frank’s striking Ccollanan Maria—a work based on a traditional religious tune from Cuzco, Perú, the original capital of the Inca empire in the 15th century. We will highlight California history and culture by presenting David Conte’s “Facing West,” third in his Whitman Triptych cycle, commissioned in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge, and Byron Au Yong’s Surrender: A Tai Qi Cantata incorporating music with traditional Chinese ideograms and movement. Other Bay Area-centric works include Oakland-based Sanford Dole’s humorous Dance Steps that imagines a future of world peace and cooperation, and a work by Edna Yeh.
May 21, 2022 | 8 pm
May 22, 2022 | 4 pm