Shalom: Music of the Jewish Tradition

from the DIRECTOR'S DESK

Dear Friend of Sacred and Profane,

As we observe Jewish American Heritage Month this May, I have the opportunity to reflect on my own multiple identities as a Jewish, and Swedish, American woman. Things were never very clearly delineated in my household – my Jewish American father was an expert Swedish folk dancer and spoke the language fluently and my (not Jewish) Swedish mother would always ask if he was Jewish when I told her I had started dating someone new. The way those two cultures both intersect and conflict has largely defined me. The Jewish temperament for debate seems to have won rather than the Swedish reticence for conflict. The Swedish love of nature has to compromise with the Jewish love of urban art and culture. Both have fed an interest in politics and dreams of a more just system that cultivates a healthy and equitable society. That complexity can be found within Jewish culture itself, of course. The upcoming Sacred and Profane has allowed me the opportunity to dig into my Jewish identity in a way I rarely do in my choral expression, and I have been personally deeply affected by the richness of this tradition and the music we’re singing this weekend, as well as the artistry of the S&P singers. Our concert includes newly composed music written with a complex harmonic palette, heart-warming accessible music, arrangements of both Ladino and Yiddish folk songs, and more. 

Sacred and Profane has been singing the music of Karen Siegel for the past few years, when the Covid lockdown allowed us to explore pieces that she wrote expressly for singing online. We first sang her Ana el na in the version for online singing in March 2020 and we return to that beautiful chant for healing now. It’s been wonderful to sing it together in the same room and to experience the interlocking melodies of the canon. Karen is one of the composers that we featured in our “Choral Connections” interview series in our 2020-21 season (which you can see on our YouTube channel), and I’ve enjoyed getting to know her as a committed choral composer, singer, conductor, and fellow Jewish woman. 

We first sang the young virtuosic Swedish Jewish composer Jacob Mühlrad’s music this past December and I’m thrilled to return to his music in this concert with his Anim zemirot. When I met Jacob a few years ago when he was in San Francisco, he gave me several scores and specifically suggested that I consider his Anim zemirot for Sacred and Profane. This work is complex and organic, exciting and warming, intellectual and spiritual, much like the Jewish tradition itself. Jacob is a champion of Swedish choral complexity, and I am thrilled that he is continuing to build on that remarkable canon of work with such skill and beauty. 

Stacy Garrop has become increasingly familiar to Bay Area audiences, as she has recently had high profile performances of her works presented by the San Francisco contemporary choral ensemble Volti, the San Francisco Symphony, and others. Stacy writes compelling, challenging music that is always deeply felt. Her Lo Yisa Goy is a setting of Micah 4:3-4, well-known in its translation “Nation shall not lift sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore” – a sentiment that certainly speaks to our current global experience. She weaves together three traditional melodies to create a beautiful work that twists and turns, taking you places you don’t expect. 

When I was building this concert, one of our sopranos, Mishaela DeVries (who we are now missing terribly while she takes up residence in her home town of Portland, OR) introduced me to the Norwegian composer Kim André Arnsen’s Even When He is Silent, a setting of a text that professes a belief in the goodness of humankind. The words were scratched onto a wall in Cologne during World War II by a Jewish person in hiding. I often find myself on the edge of tears when we rehearse this piece, and even just when speaking about it. The range of behaviour toward others that we human beings is forever shocking – from torture to risking one’s life to bring food to someone in hiding. Arnesen is the only composer on our program who is not Jewish, but I felt it was important to include this moving work.

While there are many Jewish identities, the two most populous groups are the Ashkenazi, who come primarily from Western Europe and Eastern Europe, and the Sephardim, who come mostly from Southern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. The Ashkenazi’s traditional language is Yiddish, which shares elements with German and Polish. The Sephardic language, Ladino, is a Romance language and has a strong common ground with Spanish. Singing arrangements of four Ladino folk songs by the prolific Julliard-based composer David Ludwig has been wonderful – each piece is unique from the others, and it speaks to the breadth of this rich artistic tradition.

Last but not least, singing the Yiddish classic Tumbalalayka has been a true treat for me, and a bit of a blast down memory lane, as my paternal grandmother, the musical matriarch of the family and a fluent Yiddish speaker, used to sing it to me. We are singing an arrangement by our own local Michael Kaulkin, who came to coach with us a few weeks ago. We had so much fun being his “test kitchen” choir, trying different tempi, articulations, even diction to realize what his inner ear had been hearing since writing the piece several years ago. It’s always so gratifying to be able to work directly with a composer, and Michael, with his hilarious sense of humor and beautiful writing, made working with him especially fabulous.

We are excited to bring you this beautifully varied and lovely concert this weekend, one so deeply personal to me. I hope to see you there and please say hello after the concert!

Warmly,

Rebecca

May 12, 2023

Considering This Moment: Music With Strings

 from the DIRECTOR'S DESK

Dear Friend of Sacred and Profane,
 

Three years ago, almost to the day, Sacred and Profane was five days from presenting our concert with strings, featuring the fantastic Circadian String Quartet and fellow local players. I had just returned from the American Choral Directors Association conference and my head and heart were swimming with choral music, my car was packed for that night’s dress rehearsal, and I was so excited to hear the music come to life after wonderful separate rehearsals for strings and singers. And then the lockdown happened – at 4pm on a Monday afternoon, we made the call – there would be no concerts that weekend and, as it turned out, no live concerts for almost two years. But we knew we’d return  to this moving and compelling music and I’m thrilled to present our concert to you, at long last, this weekend!

I first began dreaming of a concert for choir and strings when Karin Rehnqvist, the fantastic Swedish composer whose music we frequently perform in our concerts, told me that she was working on a work for string orchestra and eight solo voices, for which she was choosing texts from the same collections of poetry by indigenous poets from various regions that had been the source of Songs From the North, the remarkable four-movement work she composed for us for our fortieth-anniversary concert in May 2018. I was struck by the opportunity to perform a work that was something of a partner to Songs of the North, and asked her if she thought it could be re-conceived for soloists and choir. She liked the idea, and we agreed to discuss it more when the work was complete.

We needed an excellent string orchestra to work with to make this concert a reality. The first group that came to mind was the wonderful local string quartet Circadian, whose first violinist David Ryther is an old friend of mine from our undergraduate days at UC Santa Cruz. David’s remarkable skill, expressive musicality, and commitment to new music is something that is shared by the entire quartet, so I was thrilled when they agreed to partner with us, and recruit a top-rate ensemble of colleagues to complete the orchestra.

Choosing repertoire for a concert for choir and strings was a challenge, as there are many options to consider. Our original program in 2020 included Beethoven’s Elegischer Gesang to celebrate the 250 year anniversary of that composer’s birth. This time, we decided to replace that piece with No Fairytale Here, Zanaida Robles’ powerful work about Ida B. Wells, the suffragist and journalist who exposed the evils of the Jim Crow South. I’m excited to present one of the first performances of this work for mixed choir, strings, and percussion, featuring my college music school friend and master of African percussion Wade Peterson on djembe. It’s been wonderful working more closely with Dr. Robles the past couple of years – she was one of the interview subjects for my recent Masters of Nonprofit Administration capstone project on Access, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Performing Arts Organizations, and I had the opportunity to experience her remarkable music leadership as the director of a choral festival my university choirs participated in this past November. She’s becoming an increasingly sought-after composer and you’ll understand why when you hear this phenomenal work.

I’m excited to return to the music of our own local David Conte, chair of the composition faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory and fellow choir-nerd. David and I have gotten to know each other over the years since my USF University Choir joined a group of ensembles in a performance of his Elegy for Matthew, composed in memory of Matthew Shepard to a text by David’s frequent collaborator, the poet John Stirling Walker (coincidentally, I also met S&P’s phenomenal pianist, Paul McCurdy, in this project). When I discovered David’s September Sun, a multi-movement work that he wrote to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the September 11th attacks, also to a text of Stirling Walker, I knew I found an ideal work for our concert. This remarkable piece contains soaring lyrical melodies alongside the excited energy of New York City. We’ve invited members of the UC Alumni Chorus to join us on this piece, and some S&P singers will join that choir in a performance of the same work in the UCAC concert this April.

We needed something lighthearted to compliment the heavier works in the concert. Eric Whitacre’s Five Hebrew Love Songs for choir and string quartet fit the bill beautifully. Whitacre composed this piece as a graduate school student at Julliard, setting brief love poems by his then girlfriend and future wife, the Israeli soprano Hila Plitmann. The work was originally composed for Plitmann to sing with piano and solo violin, and Whitacre later arranged for a variety of vocal and instrumental combinations. These sweet songs are a lovely testament to new love in its early moments of delight and discovery.

Back to Karin Rehnqvist’s work for voices and strings. When she completed the piece, Day is here, and it had received its premiere in Stockholm, she sent me the score. We worked together to determine which parts could work well for the full ensemble, and which would be best in solo voices. Making this a reality with Sacred and Profane, our eight remarkable soloists, and the string orchestra in our rehearsals over the past couple of months has been thrilling and hugely rewarding for me. It is a demanding and moving work about the birth of the planet and our current situation confronting climate change, using Native American and other indigenous texts, as well as a beautiful Swedish hymn, to celebrate our abiding relationship with the natural world. Knowing Karin as I do, a person who spends weeks at a time on backpacking trips with her husband Hasse, and whose home outside of Stockholm sits perched on a wooded hill above a large and beautiful lake, I know that the health of our planet concerns her greatly, as it does all of us.

I hope to see you at this wonderful concert, full of variety, with poignancy and joy, depth and levity!

Warmly,
Rebecca

March 1, 2022

Dreamscape: Realizing a Better World

 from the DIRECTOR'S DESK

Dear Friends of Sacred and Profane,

I don’t know about you, but I was more surprised than usual this year by how quickly the days became short and the nights landed earlier than expected. There’s something about that darkness that makes me want to hibernate a bit, spend more time both with my dreams themselves and contemplating the idea of what dreams can represent – the possibility of the future. Dreams have long served as a poetic metaphor for building a more just world for all and of realizing our true selves. Sacred and Profane’s upcoming concert, Dreamscape: Visions for a Better World, mines the idea of the dreamworld as a space where all things are possible, including mystical imaginings, hopes for the future, and actualized personal experience.

Our concert will include the Finnish composer Sibelius’ Drömmarna (Dreams), an evocative work that imagines a world in which our deceased ancestors walk among us in the shadows. We will sing Vaughan-Williams’ “The Cloud-Capp’d Towers” from Three Shakespeare Songs, a harmonically rich setting of the soliloquy from The Tempest in which Prospero states “We are such things that dreams are made of.” This is among my favorite of Vaughan-Williams’ works. It reminds me of Peter Greenaway’s film Prospero’s Books, a brilliant surreal interpretation of Shakespare’s final play.

The singers and I are excited to return to Eric Whitacre’s Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine, which we last sang in 2015. The text by Whitacre’s best friend and frequent collaborator Tony Silvestri tells the story of Leonardo fantasizing about his crazy idea of building an airplane. Whitacre paints Leonardo’s position in 16th-century Italy beautifully by referencing every trope of Italian Renaissance madrigals. I attended the premiere performance at the 2002 American Choral Directors’ Association Convention in San Antonio by the Kansas City Chorale under the direction of Charles Bruffy, and was riveted by the Italian madrigalism in the writing, the evocative word painting, and the brilliantly colorful performance of the ensemble.
 

Composer Melissa Dunphy

A concert that explores dreams as metaphors for social justice would be incomplete without a work about DREAMers, the thousands of DACA recipients who dream of permanent residency and citizenship in the United States. Melisssa Dunphy is a composer I have long admired and I’m excited to present her “#United We Dream” from the multi-movement work American Dreamers. I love how she adopts an American musical language, a la Aaron Copland, musically stating that everyone who lives here is an American, regardless of origin or background.

People started telling me about the Jewish-Swedish wunderkind composer Jacob Mühlrad several years ago, maybe because as fellow Jewish-Swedes in choral music, we are a rather rare breed. I finally met him at an SF Cappella concert in San Francisco a few years ago and he generously loaded my arms up with a bunch of scores that I’ve been pouring over since. I love Jacob’s complex and yet mystical musical language and I’m excited to share his Dreams, a powerful setting of a poem by the inimitable Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, in this concert.

Composer Trevor Weston

S&P co-commissioned Trevor Weston’s remote choral work Martyrs about the twin pandemics of Covid-19 and the murder of Black and Brown people at the hands of the police for our March 2021 virtual concert. As a result of that experience, I became a true-devotee of Trevor's music – I think he is one of the most profound voices in American music today, period, and now that I’ve found him and his music, I’m not letting go. I can’t wait to bring you his moving setting of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s final speech, Visions of Glory, in our upcoming concert and I guarantee more to come in the future.

I first heard a vision unfolding, Derrick Skye’s setting of his own text, sung by the remarkable choir EXIGENCE under the masterful director of Eugene Rogers, at the Chorus America Conference in Chicago in the summer of 2018. Hearing that performance was life-changing and I’ve been chomping at the bit to perform the work with S&P ever since. Skye’s piece is an affirmative statement of racial justice and social change – something that we need much more of in this world in which we spend so much time examining the torment of oppression and not enough time celebrating the joy in communities of color.

Composer Michael Bussewitz-Quarm

I first met the gifted composer Michael Bussewitz-Quarm at a Chorus America conference several years ago. Ever since, I have wanted to program her music, but the right moment didn’t present itself until earlier this year, when I contacted Michael to see if she might be interested in writing a piece for us. I told her about our plans for this concert’s theme, and she eagerly accepted the challenge of composing a work based on her experience of realizing her dream of becoming a woman and the journey that has led her there, with the full support of her loving family. A few months ago, Michael delivered to me a remarkable tour-de-force, Now is the Time, a piece that celebrates the joys of family life, while also honestly portraying the struggle of living in a body that does not match one’s gender identity. She is now living as a woman and happily married to her wife of many years. Sacred and Profane and I are deeply honored to be entrusted to present Michael’s story in what I am convinced will become a significant work in the choral canon.
 

I’m looking forward to seeing you at these remarkable concerts December 9, 10, and 11th! And also wishing you all a very happy holiday season.

Warmly,

Rebecca

December 8, 2022

Staying Connected Through Music

From the Director’s Desk

Nearness of You: Staying Connected

From Artistic Director, Rebecca P.N. Seeman:

What a year it's been! We’ve confronted health, racial, environmental, and economic crises that have left us bruised but determined to create real change. We are eager to reconnect and see our friends and family face to face, and to create new connections to forge a better future for everyone, including those who are often barred from the advantages that others of us enjoy. This concert is dedicated to that – connecting with those we already know and love as well as forging new bonds in our communities and across our increasingly small globe. 

As we begin to heal in the warmth of the spring sun, longer days, and the blooming flowers, we remember the people we lost. The Sacred and Profane community has experienced the full arch of life this year – One baby was born in March and another one is on the way next month, two singers who met in our choir were recently married (they’re the ones who are expecting…), members’ elderly parents have struggled or have died, and we lost our longtime beloved bass, Michael Jordin, whom we will forever remember for his remarkable way of connecting with everyone through kindness, food, and of course music. 

This third concert in our remote season includes three new virtual choir videos (compilations of singers’ individual videos woven together by my partner Pete Gontier to tell beautiful cinematic stories) and three remote pieces, where we sing together in real time online, embracing the latency, or lag time, that comes with making music on Zoom. We’ve been grateful for the opportunity to come together on Monday nights as we always have to talk, connect, and sing, even though we are all in our own homes. And we are bursting with excitement to begin singing together and perform for our audiences in person next year!

Keep reading to learn about each work in our Nearness of You concert. You can read the full program notes and text and translations online here.

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Hoagy Carmichael, Arr. Kirby Shaw: The Nearness of You

Text: Ned Washington

We’re excited to feature our Tenor and Bass voices with Kirby Shaw’s heartwarming arrangement of “The Nearness of You”

It's not the pale moon that excites me

That thrills and delights me, oh no

It's just the nearness of you

It isn't your sweet conversation

That brings this sensation, oh no

It's just the nearness of you

When you're in my arms and I feel you so close to me

All my wildest dreams come true

I need no soft lights to enchant me

If you'll only grant me the right

To hold you ever so tight

And to feel in the night the nearness of you.

The Nearness of You, Hoagy Carmichael and Ned Washington’s classic that was debuted by the Glenn Miller Band in 1939, is the perfect way to introduce our concert – just imagine that first hug with your best friend, your grandmother, even someone you’ve never met before! I love Kirby Shaw’s romantic arrangement for tenors and basses, and especially the way our singers weave their way through the chromatic melodies to reach out to “feel the nearness of you.”

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Dale Trumbore: A Way to Be with You    

Text: Dale Trumbore

It doesn't matter if the timing's right,

I'll find a way to be with you.

And on the days when nothing's going right, I'll find a way to be with you.

And if I'm honest

I don't know what to say, except I'm here to stay.

When it's dark and you can't sleep at night, I'll find a way to be with you.

And when it feel like there's no end in sight, I'll find a way to be with you.

Nothing is easy when you are far away but that will change some day.

When our days are ours and time is free, You'll find your way home to me.

And after all these hours are done and through,

I'll find my way home to you.

When the coronavirus pandemic made it impossible for us to sing together in the same place, we were grateful to composers like Dale Trumbore for creating beautiful works for us to sing together online from our remote locations. We had planned to present Dale’s moving work for choir and piano, In the Middle, in March, and when we had to cancel that concert I was happy that we could still explore this gifted Los Angeles-based composer’s music. We brought you her remote work I Hope You’re Doing Well in December, and we’re pleased to present her A Way to Be With You for remote choir tonight.

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Karin Rehnqvist: Natt över jorden (Night On Earth)

Sacred and Profane has been performing the music of Swedish composer Karin Rehnqvist since I first began with the choir in 2004. I will be forever grateful that I discovered Karin back in the 1990s when I was researching Swedish music for women’s choir and was led to this remarkable, exciting composer. We’ve remained friends and colleagues, and Sacred and Profane has presented multiple US premieres of her works. Performing her Songs From the North, commissioned for our 40th anniversary in 2018, was one of the great highlights of my musical life. Karin was the subject of our first Composer Connections segment in October 2020, and I encourage you to hear her music and see my interview here. 

Natt över jordan (Night on Earth) is the first in the two-part cycle, Sånger ur jorden (Songs From the Earth). The text by the poet Erik Blomberg addresses Karin’s attraction to poetry that examines the themes of light and darkness as metaphors for human existence. When I was seeking music on the theme of connecting, this piece spoke to me in its connection to nature and to the expanse of the universe. Sacred and Profane has sung Natt över jorden as it was originally intended in previous performances, but it’s been lovely to explore the repetitive ostinatos as they circle each other in our re-imagining of the work for remote choir, presented tonight

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Brian Tate: Connected

Text: Brian Tate

Performance in collaboration with Oakland Youth Chorus Chamber Singers

We enjoyed collaborating with OYC Chamber Singers so much this winter, we’ve partnered with them again to keep the cross-choral music going!

I first became aware of Brian Tate’s music when my University of San Francisco choir sang his setting of the Buddhist Heart Sutra Gate Gate in the honorary doctorate ceremony for the Dalai Lama. That remarkable experience secured a deep place in my heart for this composer who often explores Buddhist themes of interconnectedness in his music, also heard tonight in his Connected. A Canadian composer, singer, and choral musician, Tate leads several ensembles in North Vancouver and sings in the a cappella vocal trio TriVo. I am so happy to continue our connection with the Oakland Youth Chorus Chamber Singers under the leadership of the remarkable La Nell Martin, begun in March in our performance of Ysaÿe Barnwell’s We Are. We are looking forward to more collaborations with OYC when we’re able to sing together in person. Many thanks to our own Kim Webster for her fun choreography! 

Brian Tate writes about Connected:

Connected came from a concept in quantum physics that I have always found quite amazing: in our human selves, we think of ourselves being in “containers,” and we see others as apart from us, different from us, with empty space in between. But when you get small enough, at a sub-particle level, the distinctions disappear – there is no difference between body, skin, air, and the next body. It is all a continuum. Hence the lines “I am you are me,” “something between us that’s greater than air,” “it’s just an illusion of me and you,” “it’s a fact subatomically.” Interestingly enough, this features strongly in Buddhist philosophy going back over two thousand years.

About Oakland Youth Chorus Chamber Singers:

Founded in 1974, the Oakland Youth Chorus (OYC) is the longest running youth chorus in the East Bay. Serving nearly 3000 singers and music students in East Bay programs each year, we focus on creating and sustaining programs of high educational and artistic merit that are accessible to and supportive of children and youth from all backgrounds. OYC welcomes all children and youth, celebrates their cultures and unique strengths, and connects them to each other, amplifying voices for changes needed to bring harmony to our world through music education and community performance. OYC Chamber Singers are made of young musicians grades 6–12, directed by La Nell Martin.

Learn more about Oakland Youth Chorus online at oaklandyouthchorus.org

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Karen Siegel: Meditation

Text: Karen Siegel

May I still my mind.

May I open my heart.

May I be slow to anger and quick to forgive.

May I slow my pace.

May I stop to breathe.

May I hold my child a minute longer.

May I live each day.

May I learn to wait.

May I come to terms with uncertainty.

May I smell the rain.

May I hear the birds.

May I feel the warmth of the sunshine.

Composer Karen Siegel has been one of the true champions of remote choral singing since the pandemic hit in March 2020. Her choral ensemble, C4 (Choral Composer/Conductor Collective), released their first remote concert in April 2020 and has presented seven more remote concerts since. Many of these programs have featured Karen’s expressive and moving works for remote choir – she has become a master of the genre and several in-person performances of these works prove that they will continue to be relevant and often-performed as we return to singing together. In addition, Karen has provided invaluable support to those of us that have had to learn how to do this on the fly – she’s provided technical support and created a list of pieces written for remote choir (that includes works by our own Edna Yeh!). We featured Karen in our third Composer Connections installment (watch online: sacredprofane.org/karen-siegel), in which she and I discussed her music and her inspiration and we shared several of her remarkable award-winning works, many of which highlight important social justice themes such as gun violence, immigration, climate change, and women’s rights. As a fellow Jewish choral musician, I am personally drawn to Karen’s frequent use of semitic musical idiom in her work, elements that you hear both in her Ana el na, which we presented in our December virtual concert, and in Meditation, which we are thrilled to present tonight. I love how the work evokes the experience of meditating in both its expansive and more internal or intimate moments, and the way the choir weaves around and supports the mezzo-soprano solo, beautifully sung by Gretchen Wallacker.

Karen writes in her preface to the piece: 

“Meditation” was inspired by my experience with the COVID-19 pandemic. I wrote the poem in early May 2020, when the NYC region was past the peak but still in the throes of the virus’ impact, and I had been sheltering at home with my family for two months. The poem grew from a meditation that helped me get through that time, and I thank Laurie Goldstein Padrón (ittakesanopenheart.com) for sharing that meditation with me. “Meditation” is intended to be a balm for singers still physically disconnected from their choirs as the pandemic stretches on. It is the piece that I want to sing right now.

This work was created for live remote performance, where the choir members are connected via the internet and audio/video software. The latency inherent in online platforms is incorporated as an artistic element—the work is largely aleatoric, where singers repeat specific phrases purposely out of synch with the others on their voice parts. The solo allows for melody to be heard without getting lost in a swirl of sound. The form of “Meditation” follows a journey from chaos to calm, mirroring the experience of meditating in a time of distress.

“Meditation” exists in two versions, for mixed and treble choir. It was commissioned jointly by the thirteen choirs in the “Meditation” Commissioning Consortium, to be premiered by the Tier 1 choirs September-December 2020 and performed by the Tier 2 choirs January-June 2021 in live remote online performances; with choirs located in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Washington State; and in Munich, Germany.

Meet the wonderful composer Karen Siegel in our most recent Composer Connection to learn about her inspirations, composing for social justice, jewish musical influences, and remote music as a composer, performer, and director. Karen also previews her new piece “Meditation”

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“Nearness of you: Staying Connected“ will be dedicated to the memory of our dear friend, singer, and beloved member of the Bay Area music community, Michael Jordin.

A Tribute to Michael Jordin

David Wikander: Kung Liljekonvalje (King Lily of the Valley) 

Text: Gustaf Fröding

Just a few years after I started conducting Sacred and Profane, I was contacted by Michael Jordin, a local choral bass and clarinet and saxophone teacher, who had heard that I regularly programmed the music of Sweden with the choir. He was interested in exploring his Swedish heritage and he joined us for what was supposed to be a brief period. Fast forward over ten years, and Michael had become a pillar in our bass section, serving as section leader and often the only one able to hit the low, low notes. He had an amazing way of finding the ideas and interests that connected people, all while retaining his own gentle warmth and even a bit of shyness, and Michael’s snack nights became epic celebrations.

He and I connected over so many things through the years – our love for our dogs, good food, the outdoors, and music – both classical choral music and American folk and rock music of the 60s and 70s, particularly Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. We were so happy when Michael recovered after a frightening bout with cancer last summer and was able to join us in our remote rehearsals, even contributing to our virtual choir video of the Haitian song for healing, Frè O. When he became ill again a few months ago, he continued to join us in rehearsals until he was too weak to do so. His death has been a huge blow to everyone in the Bay Area music community that has cherished the years of music-making and conversation with Michael. I am grateful to Barry Stone, longtime S&P supporter, husband of our soprano Kim Webster, and former fellow-bass with Michael in the choir Coro Hispano, for creating this video tribute to Michael, featuring Kung Liljekonvalje, the lovely folk-style piece about flowers in the springtime by Swedish composer David Wikander. Listen closely, and you’ll be able to hear the ring of Michael’s rich bass voice.

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Erika Lloyd, Arr. Vince Peterson: Cells Planets

Text: Erika Lloyd

So far away,

when all will shine

and all will play

hey.

The stars will open up

and all will be

tiny pieces of galaxy,

reflected in you and me…

Cells, planets, same thing…

Bright electric lights

on all the leaves,

and everything

growing from a tree,

water’s blood,

and roots are veins.

I don’t know you

but I like you,

I don’t know you

but I miss you,

I don’t know you

but I need you…

The smallest is

the biggest thing

and in all the world

the love is the love

from me to you…

I don’t know you

but I like you,

I don’t know you

but I miss you,

I don’t know you

but I need you…

Brooklyn-based singer and painter Erika Lloyd is most widely known as the lead for her indie pop band Little Grey Girlfriend. She also sings with the professional chamber choir Choral Chameleon and holds a Bachelors in Vocal Performance and Early Music from Indiana University. The San Francisco-based all-male chamber choir Chanticleer has performed and recorded Vince Peterson’s arrangement of Lloyd’s Cells Planets regularly since 2010, and the work has since become a staple in the choral world. I first became aware of this piece when the singers in my choir at the University of San Francisco adamantly requested it for our collaboration concert with the music group from a high security men’s prison in Boston. The theme of connecting despite physical and social barriers made the work ideal for both that concert and tonight’s program and a lovely way to leave you reveling in the knowledge that we will be connecting more and more in the coming months.

Enjoy this sneak peek of “Cells Planets” featuring the amazing solo by soprano Rachael Roueché! See the whole thing this June 5.

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Don’t miss Nearness of You: Staying Connected

JUNE 5, 2021 | 6PM

BROADCAST ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL

This concert is free and open to the public, no tickets necessary

Join our virtual audience and chat with our singers and director from the best seat in the house—your own!

Make Our World Anew: Black Voices Matter

From the Director’s Desk:

Make Our World Anew: Black Voices Matter

From Artistic Director, Rebecca P.N. Seeman:

It’s been a year since the world went into lockdown, and a year since Sacred and Profane decided to face the moment head-on and forge a new ambitious path. This second concert in our remote season includes new virtual choir videos (compilations of singers’ individual videos woven together by my partner Pete Gontier to tell beautiful cinematic stories) and a remarkable new commission from Trevor Weston – a remote piece where we sing together in real time online, embracing the latency, or lag time, that comes with making music on Zoom. While we still desperately miss singing together in the same space, we’re grateful for the opportunity to come together on Monday nights as we always have to talk, connect, and sing.

In addition to the current health pandemic caused by the Coronavirus, this past year has made it all too clear that we are in the throes of another pandemic that has raged in our country for over four hundred years – that of slavery and its ugly offspring, racism in both institutional and personal forms. As a choral ensemble in one of the most diverse regions in the world, Sacred and Profane could not remain silent. In June, I signed the Black Voices Matter pledge that calls on choral musicians to program music by Black and Brown composers throughout our seasons. In our December concert, we brought you Frè O, a cry for healing from Haiti, and Stacey Gibbs’ profound arrangement of There is a Balm in Gilead. In this concert – Make Our World Anew: Black Voices Matter – we amplify the voices of composers who are addressing issues of racism and violence in their music.

We recognize that this is just the beginning of our commitment to anti-racism and that we have much work to do. We acknowledge that we have failed to fully realize our mission to be dedicated to diversity by not considering the diversity of our own community in our selection of music, our choice of musical collaborations, and our care for those around us. We are committed to doing better going forward, beginning with this concert.

Please visit our ADEI page to read our new statement and plan of action for ongoing access, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Read the full Black Voices Matter Pledge at blackvoicesmatterpledge.org.

Keep reading to learn about each work in our Black Voices Matter concert. You can read the full program notes and text and translations online here.

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Rosephanye Dunn Powell: To Sit and Dream (2010)

Text: Langston Hughes

Original Poem Title: “To You”

To sit and dream, to sit and read

To sit and learn about the world

Outside our world of here and now –

Our problem world –

To dream of vast horizons of the soul

Through dreams made whole,

Unfettered free – help me!

All you who are dreamers, too,

Help me to make our world anew.

I reach out my dreams to you.

When I was researching music for this concert last summer, I asked my friend and colleague, La Nell Martin, Artistic Director of the Oakland Youth Choir, for suggestions for Black and Brown composers. She sent me several names, including that of Rosephanye Dunn Powell. I logged into Dr. Powell’s website and discovered a gifted composer, scholar, and singer who had produced a treasure trove that spans several genres and styles of choral music. I fell in love with her evocative setting of Langston Hughes poem To You, in which he returns to the idea of dreaming as a vehicle for imagining an alternative, better world wherein people of color enjoy the same access to happiness, success, and security that White people take for granted. Unlike his better known poem and call to action I Dream a World, which was the inspiration for Dr. King’s famous speech, To You considers the interior intellectual life of a man who is safe and comfortable in his own home, surrounded by his books and the written reports in the news about current events and civil unrest .

When Dr. Powell joined our rehearsal to discuss her piece, we were inspired by her commitment to Hughes’ message and personality, including a piano part that plays tribute to Hughes mastery as a jazz pianist and member of the vibrant Harlem jazz scene in the 1950s and 60s. Dr. Powell also spoke about how she approached the sense of wandering in a dream-space with her wafting melodies and the way those melodies intertwine to evoke coming together in a struggle for justice for which the poem implores. Many thanks to our Jeremy Davidson for leading a detailed discussion of Hughes’ life and work.

Rosephanye Powell joins an S&P rehearsal online to coach “To Sit and Dream” and talk about her choral and compositional insprations.

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Til Ungdommen (To Youth), Arr. Henning Sommerro (1988)               

Original Music: Otto Mortensen (1951)

Text: Nordahl Grieg (1936)

Sacred and Profane has been bringing you the music of Scandinavia for years, but I don’t believe we’ve introduced a discussion about the Scandinavian socio-political experiment to create a society that supports the basic needs of its citizens. The Norwegian poet and musician Nordahl Grieg’s 1936 poem Til Ungdommen (To Youth) calls for a world that banishes war and instead embraces care and love for our fellow humans and the earth that we inhabit. Written when the threat of fascism was very real in Europe and set in 1951 to music by Otto Mortensen, the poem evokes the motivation for the Scandinavian socialist-democratic political system that was adopted soon thereafter, a system to which many people in the United States are now turning for a more positive example of what government can be.

On July 22, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik, a thirty-two-year-old Norwegian right-wing terrorist, led a violent crusade against people he considered supportive of Islam and a feminist European society. He set off a car bomb outside government buildings in Oslo, killing eight of his fellow countrymen. Dressed as a policeman, he then managed to evade police, traveled twenty-five miles by car, crossed a river by ferry, and arrived on the small island of Utøya where the Norwegian Workers’ Youth League was holding a summer camp. There he shot and killed sixty-nine more people, some of them at point blank range. His victims included fifty-five teenagers, one of whom was fourteen. Following Breivik’s attack, people in Norway flocked to the streets to sing Til Ungdommen to affirm their support for the values that threaten and frighten people like Breivik.

 Every time I think about the day the news of this attack spread across the world, tears overcome me. As a Swede, I have always been proud that my mother’s country, along with other Scandinavian and European countries, has chosen a more positive, humanity-affirming path than seen in many other parts of the world, including our own country. To see right-wing extremist ideals reemerge in Scandinavia (because we cannot turn a blind eye to that region's own flirtation with fascism in the past) has been enormously upsetting to me. Sacred and Profane is bringing you Til Ungdommen in this concert not only to commemorate the 10th-anniversary of the massacre, but to proclaim our commitment to anti-racism and our rejection of violence as a means to assert dominance over others.

 Many thanks to our resident Swede Tomas Hallin for leading our discussion of Til Ungdommen.

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Trevor Weston: Martyrs (2020)

Text: Anonymous, from the isorhythmic motet by Guillaume Dufay, Psalm 39, Trevor Weston

In the past year, many conductors have turned to Marques L.A. Garrett’s remarkable list of idiomatic and non-idiomatic music by African and African Diaspora composers. Last summer, I relished examining the music of the many composers Dr. Garrett includes. Toward the end of this alphabetical list I arrived at the name Trevor Weston and I started to investigate. I am still left with a gaping question – why was this the first time I was hearing about this composer? Not only had he been engaged in his master’s and Ph.D. studies in composition at UC Berkeley around the same time I was a music student at UC Santa Cruz, but his work had been championed by Marika Kuzma, who was UC Berkeley’s Director of Choral Activities for many years, a former conductor of Sacred and Profane, and the close friend of our one original S&P singer George-Ann Bowers. More importantly, Trevor’s is the kind of choral music that I relish – deeply moving and emotional and at the same time unabashedly intellectual and unafraid to take risks and explore the edges of what choral music can be. I encourage you all to view our Composer Connections series installment on Dr. Weston and his music, which you can watch on our website and YouTube Channel.

Since Trevor’s existing choral music is too demanding for a virtual choir video, I reached out to him to see if he would consider a commission from S&P for a work that could be rehearsed and performed remotely, ideally a piece that addresses the call for meaningful and lasting action regarding police violence against African Americans. He responded that he was working on a similar commission for C4 Ensemble, a consortium of triple-threat composer-singer-conductors, and suggested that C4 might agree to a co-commission. Little did he know that S&P performed C4’s Karen Siegel’s Ana El Na in our December 2020 concert and joined a consortium commission project for her Meditation that will be included in our June 2021 concert, and that I have relied on her innovation and support regarding remote singing since this new reality began last spring. Happily, C4 agreed to a co-commission, and Trevor proceeded to compose two versions of Martyrs that consider each ensemble’s technical requirements. Learning this powerful piece has been an exciting challenge that has stretched us and that we’ve been longing for since we went remote. I am grateful to Trevor for speaking with me at length about music in general and his music in particular and for attending an entire Pacific Standard Time evening Zoom rehearsal all the way from his home in New York City (the same day that the American Academy of Arts and Letters Announced Trevor as a 2021 recipient of its Awards in Music) to coach Martyrs and help us arrive at a more authentic performance of this trailblazing work.

Trevor writes about Martyrs:

 Years ago, I gave a lecture on early Renaissance music and played ‘O Sainte Sebastian’ by Guillaume Dufay. The words summoned the saint to spare the population from the bubonic plague. What struck me about the piece, beyond its beauty, was the use of the most formal and complex form of choral composition at the time, an isorhythmic motet, to comment on an important contemporary concern. In essence, Dufay used his strongest compositional tools to address an important societal problem.

 In the past, I have looked to the Psalms of David when I wanted text to communicate individual human despair. The summer of 2020 combined the COVID plague with numerous examples of African Americans dying as a result of excessive police actions. The fear associated with both issues seemed similar to me; fear that, in the course of going about your day, you could be “caught” by a life-ending intrusion. The inability to breathe is a symptom of both afflictions. The words used too often by those suffering from excessive police force, “I can’t breathe” was also the common complaint of those suffering from COVID-19. I inserted this phrase in the excerpt from Psalm 39 that I used for Martyrs.

 The deaths of most people afflicted by both plagues during the summer of 2020 could have been avoided. A similar response to both situations was disbelief of the severity of the problem or a disbelief in the veracity of the problem. For this reason, I consider the now 210,000+ COVID deaths in the US and the deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Elijah McClain, et al. as unnecessary and easily avoided. Martyrs have always been a warning to the living to act before and not after the loss of life. I composed Martyrs to honor their lives and hopefully encourage the rest of us to stop future senseless deaths.

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Kim Fowler: Emergence in Four Parts (2020)

Poem and performance by Kim Fowler

Read the full text online here or in our program texts and translations.

One advantage of rehearsing remotely is that singers are able to join us from great distances, and we’ve been able to connect with musicians from Canada to the Southwest, where alto Kim Fowler—one of our newest members—resides. Our weekly online rehearsals create a space for members to express thoughts and feelings, engage in critical discussions of our repertoire’s texts and histories, and digest our tumultuous world together in a format that celebrates each members unique talents. Kim, an accomplished author, shared a performance of her powerful poem Emergence in Four Parts she wrote while processing the national trauma following George Floyd’s death this summer. Her beautifully crafted words touched us deeply, and her description of the creative process as an act of healing resonated with our ethos for this season’s programming: that music and art are expressions of our shared humanity that connect, empower, inspire, and heal us.  

Kim writes:

I am pulled to write about the beauty in the land and in the spirit of humans struggling, celebrating their movement through this life. In my writing and my coaching I want to get to know what breathes below the surface that is waiting to be heard, that offers us riddles to be deciphered through dreams and visions. There is power in transparency.

 Emergence in Four Parts was published in the Winter 2021 issue of Reinventing Home, a digital magazine exploring the concept of home through a wide variety of cultural and creative lenses, from psychology to storytelling. We’re proud to share this impactful work in our program, and amplify her voice and experiences. Many thanks to Kim Fowler for sharing this moving performance.  

Learn more about Kim and her work at kimfowlerauthor.com

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Ysaÿe Maria Barnwell: We Are (1991)

Performance in collaboration with Oakland Youth Chorus Chamber Singers

For each child that's born

a morning star rises

and sings to the universe

who we are.

We are our grandmothers' prayers.

We are our grandfathers' dreamings.

We are the breath of our ancestors.

We are the spirit of God.

We are

Mothers of courage

Fathers of time

Daughters of dust

Sons of great vision.

We are

Sisters of mercy

Brothers of love

Lovers of life and

the builders of nations.

We are

Seekers of truth

Keepers of faith

Makers of peace and

the wisdom of ages.

We are our grandmothers' prayers.

We are our grandfathers' dreamings.

We are the breath of our ancestors.

We are the spirit of God.

For each child that's born

a morning star rises

and sings to the universe

who we are.

WE ARE ONE.

In normal times, I often arrive at First Unitarian Church of Oakland around 6:30 on Monday evenings to prepare the space and my head for that night’s Sacred and Profane rehearsal. If I’m lucky, I arrive early enough to hear the end of La Nell Martin’s rehearsal with her Oakland Youth Chorus Chamber Singers. I’m always impressed by her spirited and supportive leadership that inspires her singers to produce a sound bigger and more powerful than I would expect from a group of young singers. La Nell has recently informed me that she then often stays late working in the OYC offices upstairs and takes in S&P’s rehearsal later on those same evenings. We have gotten to know each other in the space between our respective rehearsals in our talks about the local choral music scene and our lives as women conductors. I’ve been thrilled to know La Nell on the sidelines as the California choral community has discovered her gifts and skills in the past few years and sought her out for multiple presentations at California Choral Directors Associations conferences and events.

La Nell and I have mused about an OYC-S&P collaboration for a few years and the current remote-choir reality in which we now live presented a perfect opportunity to create a virtual choir video together. I suggested Ysaÿe Barnwell’s We Are, and La Nell revealed to me that OYC has a storied past with that now-popular work, as the group was one of the first to perform it and worked closely with Dr. Barnwell.

Some of you may remember Ysaÿe Barnwell as the female bass in the African American women’s a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock, which was active from 1979 to 2013. I vividly remember discovering Sweet Honey when I was an undergraduate at UCSC and couldn’t stop playing their records. Dr. Barnwell is also a prolific composer – in addition to writing many of the Sweet Honey’s songs, she has also been commissioned to create music for dance, film, and stage productions, as well as many popular choral works. Dr. Barnwell conducts music workshops, including a workshop she created called "Building a Vocal Community: Singing in the African American Tradition." Her piece We Are was written for the Oakland-based Redwood Cultural Work, a nonprofit organization that supported the LGBTQ+ community, as well as for the Boy’s Choir of Harlem and the Cincinnati-based women’s choir, MUSE.

In our preparation of We Are, S&P discussed the meaning of the text, in particular the idea that we are all imbued with the promise to fulfill our ancestor’s wish for a better world. Our alto Kim Fowler, who we are fortunate to have join our remote rehearsals from her home in Santa Fe, shared with us her four-part poem about her connection to her ancestry that she wrote in the wake of George Lloyd’s murder. Discussions led by Kim, her good friend and our longtime alto Dyana Vukovich, and La Nell about the significance of the text and music deepened our connection to the work and to our own pasts – the photographs you see in our video are of our ancestors. I loved meeting the OYC singers in their Zoom rehearsal a few weeks ago. Each of the singers chose a word to describe what they’re feeling at this time in response to the many things Dr. Barnwell suggests that “we are” in her piece. Singers offered words like “hopeful,” “apprehensive,” and “determined.” Perhaps most striking was when one singer shared that she feels “tired” – tired of spending her school days on Zoom and tired of being placed in the impossible position of representing the Black experience to her mostly white and frequently insensitive classmates. This is an eye-opening lesson to all of us as we delve into this critical work to right the wrongs of the past four hundred years.

About Oakland Youth Chorus Chamber Singers:

Founded in 1974, the Oakland Youth Chorus (OYC) is the longest running youth chorus in the East Bay. Serving nearly 3000 singers and music students in East Bay programs each year, we focus on creating and sustaining programs of high educational and artistic merit that are accessible to and supportive of children and youth from all backgrounds. OYC welcomes all children and youth, celebrates their cultures and unique strengths, and connects them to each other, amplifying voices for changes needed to bring harmony to our world through music education and community performance. OYC Chamber Singers are made of young musicians grades 6–12, directed by La Nell Martin.

 Learn more about Oakland Youth Chorus online at oaklandyouthchorus.org

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Make Our World Anew: Black Voices Matter

MARCH 20 2021 | 6PM

this broadcast is free and open to the public, no tickets necessary

Health and Harmony - Program Notes

From the Director’s Desk:

I Hope You’re Doing Well: Health & Harmony

Dear Friends of Sacred and Profane,

When our world turned upside down last March, Sacred and Profane was confronted with the need to make a decision -- take a hiatus until we could safely sing together again, become an online social club of sorts whose musical activity would consist of  singing pieces together while on mute, or forge into this new reality of singing together online. We took the latter option and have chosen to take musical risks, innovate, make mistakes, learn and grow. We have committed to making music together, to nurturing our musical connections with one another, and to share that music with our audiences.

We’ve put together a season of all kinds of musical experiences. We are creating virtual choir videos of compilations of singers’ individual videos and singing remote pieces where we sing together in real time online, embracing the latency, or lag time, that comes with making music on Zoom. We’ve sampled various internet platforms for making music together and learned how to work with new modes of technology, acquired USB microphones and learned how to set mic levels specifically for each piece. We’ve debated whether to attempt to sing rhythmically in sync or whether to accentuate the lag time. We’ve sung on mute while one person sings live. We’ve sung along with guides and recordings. We’ve been frustrated with the limitations of singing through technology and missed the wonderful energy of singing together in the same space, but at the same time we’ve relished the opportunity to come together on Monday nights as we always have, talk and connect, and sing beautiful, moving music.

And now we are excited to share that music with you! When I began ruminating on this season, it was clear that we would still be in the throes of the Coronavirus through the end of 2020 and possibly beyond. What I didn’t know was that cases would be surging in the United States as we broadcast our concert. Our first concert of our 43rd season – I Hope You’re Doing Well: Songs of Health and Harmony – feels particularly needed in this unusual holiday season, when we all need a good dose of “health and harmony.”

Keep reading for notes on our December concert repertoire. Full program notes with texts and translations can be found here.

Composer, arranger, and conductor Stacey Gibbs

In the past few years, I’ve often turned to Stacey Gibbs’ remarkable arrangements of traditional African American spirituals. Sacred and Profane sang his Follow the Drinking Gourd in December of 2017 and his Soon I Will Be Done in March of 2019. There is a Balm in Gilead speaks clearly to this moment and our longing for healing. The text refers to the Hebrew bible book of Jeremiah, in which Jeremiah appeals for a healing balm or a physician to heal the people of Israel. The balm itself has been interpreted to refer to a spiritual medicine. After the last few years of division in our country and the last several months of the pandemic, spiritual and physical healing feel equally needed.

African American spirituals have a rich history. Because enslaved people were often forbidden to read anything but the Bible, spirituals are made up of direct and adapted scripture. As Karen Cook Bell writes, enslaved people saw in scripture "a God who took the sides of the victims of history, rather than one who simply established the existing social order. [So] African American spirituals not only appropriated the tools of the enslaver’s language to resist slavery, but also relied upon African American folk culture to critique the southern slave system." As W.E.B. Du Bois writes, "through all the sorrow of the Sorrow Songs there breathes a hope – a faith in the ultimate justice of things. The minor cadences of despair change often to triumph and calm confidence. Sometimes it is a faith in life, sometimes a faith in death, sometimes assurance of boundless justice in some fair world beyond. But whichever it is, the meaning is always clear: that sometimes, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skins.”

Many thanks to Rachael Rouché for her assistance researching and writing these notes.

•••

My original plan for our 2020-2021 season included a concert of music from the Jewish tradition. I programmed Karen Siegel’s Ana El Na (Please G-d heal us) as a procession. Karen is a member of the C4 Choral Composer/Conductor Collective, an ensemble based in New York that instantly became a leader in remote singing when the pandemic hit. Last spring, Karen began writing music to be sung remotely, including a re-arrangement of her Ana El Na, a plea for healing that has been sung in her synagogue in New Jersey for years. Who could have predicted that a work I had already intended for this season would suddenly become so fitting in this moment, and written by the composer who has more than any other made singing together online during the pandemic a mission? I’m pleased to offer this piece that not only asks healing for those who are ill, but also remembers the members of the medical community who are our heroes of the moment in its plea to “strengthen the hands of those who are taking care of them.” This piece has special resonance for me as a Jewish woman and it was a pleasure to coach the Hebrew pronunciation with my Israeli stepmother, Avital Agam. It’s also been particularly wonderful to hear our own Adam Lange give all his heart to the moving text in the solo recitation.

•••

Haitian percussionist Jeff Pierre is featured in this December’s performance of Frè O

Sacred and Profane has embraced the music of Sweden for years, but this moment calls us to augment the voices of Black and Brown communities and composers. Sten Källman’s work with Haitian music presented a perfect opportunity to embrace both of these missions at once, and his Frè O is particularly fitting for our concert. A Swedish multi-instrumentalist, arranger, and conductor, Källman has lived in Haiti on and off since the late 1960s, working with the people and developing a deep connection to Vodou culture and music. Källman’s Gothenburg-based choir, Amanda, has championed his arrangements of Haitian music and he has toured extensively with his all-Swedish Vodou band, Simbi. Our own Swedish tenor Tomas Hallin sang with Amanda a number of years ago. Sten’s notes in his score present this work perfectly:

The Republic of Haiti was created in 1804 by slaves who revolted against France, believing that the message of the French Revolution that all men are free and equal brothers was as true for the black man as it was for the white man. Modern Haitians are descended from generations of intermarriage between a variety of West African nations, with some influence from the French and the Taino Indians. Similarly, Haitian cultural life is a rich mix of these influences, and the Vodou religion has become an effective synthesis of Christianity and West African beliefs. In my experience, Vodou has been vastly misunderstood by most Western nations.

Vodou is practiced mainly by poorer, rural Haitians as a way of creating a collective community between the extended family and the nature spirits that they believe respond to singing and dancing. These Haitians are also Christians who believe in one God – the Vodou spirits appear and are pictured in similar ways to Catholic Saints and are used as symbols representing the various aspects and emotions of man. Vodou spirits are worshiped only through singing, dancing, and drumming. I have watched as the music at these gatherings creates a sense of warmth and security in a community that helps people become completely free to express themselves, revealing the true dignity of the human spirit. It is this sense of freedom and community that we all seek through group singing, and this music confirms for me that people express the same basic emotions with their music wherever and whenever they live.

I heard a village in Haiti sing Frè O and was overcome with the power of this expression of grief. As a man lies dying from illness, his relatives appeal to the Vodou spirits Dambala, the serpent, and Ayida, the rainbow. These married spirits are very old images brought from West Africa to Haiti and symbolize our connection to the past, the present, and the future, which we feel more strongly in the face of an impending death. I hope the beauty and the simplicity of the music speaks for itself.

I am grateful for the support of the individuals who helped make our performance of Frè O more genuine and meaningful. Haitian percussionist Daniel Brevil recorded the text for us so we would have a native speaker to emulate. Daniel also connected me with members of the local Haitian music community, including Yagbe Onilu, a percussionist, scholar, and spiritual guide who spoke with us about Vodou culture, and Jeff Pierre, the remarkable Haitian percussionist who you see in our virtual choir video. Many thanks also to Wade Peterson, a college friend and percussionist who helped me connect with musicians, and to our own Rachael Rouché, who led additional discussions about the rich tradition of Vodou and provides the moving solo you’ll hear in our video.

•••

Los Angeles based composer Dale Trumbore has taken the choral world by storm in recent years and this young composer’s works are now championed by the country’s finest vocal ensembles. I will never forget hearing the remarkable Aeolians of Oakwood University sing her In the Middle, with Dale on the piano, at the American Choral Directors Association conference in March 2019. Sacred and Profane was planning to present that piece as part of a concert with piano this coming March and we hope to bring that to you soon. Thankfully, Dale has written a number of pieces that can be sung remotely, including her of the moment I Hope You’re Doing Well. This piece calls for the conductor to sing with the choir, and it’s been a delight for me to have the opportunity to join in the music making as a singing member of the choir.

•••

Sacred and Profane has regularly turned to Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s music for comfort and healing, most recently in our 40th anniversary concert in May 2018 with his Da pacem Domine, which served as a balm to follow his countryman and friend Veljo Tormis’ powerful cry against the ravages of war, Curse Upon Iron. For this concert, I chose his Beatitudes. Composed for Theater of Voices in 1990, Beatitudes is one of Pärt’s first English language settings. The text from text, from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, offers comfort to those who are persecuted or who suffer, promising relief and celebration in the afterlife. I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect poem for this year in which we’ve witnessed and condemned police violence against African Americans and seen Black and Brown people disproportionately affected by the coronavirus. C4 Ensemble performed a remote version of Beatitudes in their May online concert, in which they embraced asynchronous singing, inspiring me to bring the piece to S&P. We’ve tried different approaches to singing this work, alternating between augmenting the asynchronous reality of singing together online and trying to align rhythmically as much as possible. Of all of our works in this concert set, this one has challenged us most, but we’ve learned how to hear each other in new ways and we’ve leaned into the beauty and substance of the text.

Arvo Pärt’s distinct compositional idiom is tintinnabuli (from the Latin tintinnabulum, "a bell"). This simple style was influenced by the composer's mystical experiences with chant music and gives his compositions a meditative and spiritual quality.

•••

I first came to know James Agee’s masterful poem Sure on This Shining Night through Samuel Barber’s remarkable setting for voice and piano. I’ve always enjoyed the alliteration Agee employs in the words “sure, shining, shadows,” then in “healed, health, high, holds, hearts, whole” and again in “weep, wonder, wandering.” I find it delightful to massage those consonants into expressive meaning when singing that piece. Morten Lauridsen’s much-loved setting of that text for piano and voice was an obvious choice for our concert, and several S&P singers have remarked how good it feels to sing this nurturing and warm work. We hope it leaves you feeling equally cradled and comforted this holiday season.

Rebecca P. N. Seeman, Artistic Director

Warmly,

Rebecca

Watch the December concert broadcast I Hope You’re Doing Well: Health & Harmony

Saturday, December 19 at 6pm on our YouTube Channel

S&P Virtual Reception and Holiday Party

It’s About to Get Ugly… Sacred & Profane’s Holiday Party!

You’re Invited! Join Sacred & Profane for some post-concert merriment and holiday festivities! Following our broadcast of our December concert I Hope You’re Well: Health & Harmony we’re hosting a virtual reception and holiday party to celebrate the season and conclusion of our fall session. We’ll also debut a special 2020 holiday video.

Grab a beverage to toast, chat with us, and join our ugly sweater contest! If you're interested in attending, RSVP here to receive a Zoom link to attend. 

Saturday, December 19

after the concert broadcast on YouTube, approximately 7pm

Grab a beverage to toast! We’ve got a list of festive cocktail recipes themed to our concert repertoire to get you in the spirit for celebration. From Rebecca’s traditional Swedish glӧgg (a staple at all our holiday parties) to Haitian holiday Cremas to an Arvo Pear(t) Collins, these are sure to warm up your evening. Check out all the recipes here.

Join the ugly sweater contest! It’s about to get ugly… Just wear your most outrageous Christmas, Hanukkah, or winter-themed sweater, vest, or jacket. We’ll vote during the party for the most ugly and the most festive and the winners will receive prizes! 

• Ugliest sweater will win a month’s subscription (2 12oz bags) of unique, locally roasted coffee from Rhetoric Coffee in Berkeley delivered right to you! Each shipment includes the latest roast; an original commissioned piece of art hand-screen printed on the bag; coffee tasting notes; and of course thanks and love.

• Most festive sweater will win a mulled wine kit with a bottle of red wine and spice blend made by local culinary favorite Oaktown Spice Shop. It’s got everything you need to make the perfect winter weather libation. 

We can’t wait to see you there!

Announcing Connections: our 2020-2021 Season

Getting back into the "sing" of things as rehearsals are underway!

Sacred and Profane, A Chamber Chorus is excited to announce our 2020–21 Season: Connections. We’re going digital this season to keep choral music thriving in the age of teleconferencing and social distancing. While we can’t rehearse together physically, we’re embracing new musical opportunities that the challenges of distance present. Our repertoire combines both canonic choral works with brand-new pieces that utilize technology with timely themes—music that allows us to stay connected with one another through our artistic expression, to collaborate in new ways, to build bridges in times of social upheaval, to raise our voices for those that are not always heard, and to provide that human comfort during times of stress.

We're planning a creative season of live broadcasts, special productions, and more. We’re looking forward to sharing music and connecting with you in a new way! We hope you'll join us for a different kind of choral music experience. Keep reading for a taste of what we have in store, and keep an eye on our website for more details. 

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COMPOSER CONNECTIONS:

the creative voice beyond the score

We’re delighted to launch Composer Connections this season, a new series that connects audiences with the composers behind the music we perform. Enjoy intimate conversations with our director and composers near and far to explore their creative inspirations, processes, and lives as composers in the strange new landscape outside the concert hall. This series provides a unique look past the score to connect through our shared language of music—to illuminate the people and stories in between the notes on the page that give the choral music deeper meaning.

Our first artist in the Composer Connections series is Swedish composer Karin Rehnqvist, whose work we frequently perform under the direction of Aritistic Director Rebecca Seeman. If you’re familiar with Sacred and Profane, you’ll recognize her impactful work from many of our performances. The ensemble has premiered several of her works in the US, and commissioned the composer to write Songs from the North for our 40th anniversary concert. The companion piece to that work, Day is here! was planned as a US premiere in March 2020, but was cancelled due to coronavirus.

Join us for an intimate conversation with Rebecca and Karin about her inspiration and compositional process, her history with Sacred and Profane, the role of the creative voice out in the community, and how COVID-19 has impacted her life as a composer. Alongside her interview, we’ll also be sharing recent performances of her work to provide a context to her compositional style and celebrate her beautiful repertoire.

Watch the broadcast on our Youtube channel  SATURDAY OCTOBER 17 at 6 PM and chat with our director in the comments live. Because Karin is based in Sweden, the interview will be prerecorded due to the time difference and broadcast live as a watch party (and available to watch on-demand after the premiere). 

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CONNECTIONS 

upcoming BROADCASTS: 

I Hope You're Doing Well: Health and Harmony

Saturday, December 19, 2020 at 6PM

As a global pandemic continues to shape our world, we’re exploring facets of public health through music, from physical health to emotional wellness with musical texts of sickness, healing, and the power of reaching out to loved ones. We’re excited to share music by composers from the medieval period (Hildegard von Bingen) to contemporary works written during COVID-induced social isolation, like American composer Dale Trumbore’s I Hope You’re Doing Well for online choir, which echo the sentiments of communicating and connecting in our brave new world. We’re raising a prayer for healing with Karen Siegel’s Justice Choir Songbook work Ana El Na and Estonian minimalist Arvo Pärt’s Beatitudes. We’ll perform American spirituals and choral traditions by Stacey Gibbs and Morten Lauridsen, and Fre O, an arrangement of a Hatian traditional Voudou chant with percussion by guest artist Chief Yagbe Awolowo Onilu.

Make our World Anew: Black Voices Matter

March 2021

We’re proud to amplify underrepresented voices and bring composers of color to the forefront in solidarity with the Black Voices Matter pledge, an initiative to celebrate the culture and experiences of Black Americans and commit ourselves as choral artists and organizations to anti-racist work. We’ll be perfoming works by Rosephanye Powell and, Moira Smiley; Mortensson/Sommerroand’s Norwegian anthem against violence, injustice, oppression, and a brand-new commission for teleconferenced choir by composer Trevor Weston. We’re also excited to perform Ysaÿe Barnwell’s uplifting We Are in collaboration with Oakland Youth Chorus Chamber Singers.

Nearness of You: Staying Connected

May 2021

Reach out an connect with us! Connection is more important than ever these days, and we rely on both our technological connections to keep working, but more importantly the human connection of family and community. Our spring repertoire explore these concepts of connection with Dale Trumbore’s A Way to be with You for online choir, A Kirby Shaw arrangement of the standard Nearness of You for men’s voices, and Brian Tate’s Connected. Sacred and Profane is also presenting a premiere of a consortium commission composed by Karen Siegel, a choral meditation to help us through these unprecedented times, and Natt över jorden by Swedish composer Karin Rehnqvist.

We appreciate your flexibility with final release dates and times of later concerts, as we navigate such an unorthodox season. Stay tuned for more details to be announced!

IMPORTANT COVID-19 UPDATE: Remaining 2019–20 Concerts POSTPONED

Dear Friend of Sacred & Profane,

As you are aware, the unprecedented situation regarding COVID-19 is continuously evolving and raising precautionary action throughout our local and global communities, including the Bay Area’s shelter-in-place mandate. We continue to closely monitor the situation with Federal, State, and Local agencies to ensure the health and safety of S&P’s patrons, performers, employees, and volunteers. 

It has become clear that we will not be able to present the remainder of our concerts safely for the 2019–2020 season, and have postponed our March and May 2020 concerts. While we are eager to share this incredible music with you, we realize that the health and safety of our musical and greater community should take precedence as we all navigate this uncertain time together. We are working with our venues, singers, and orchestra musicians to reschedule the concerts for next season.

The following options are available to those who have already purchased tickets:

Exchange: 
You may transfer your ticket purchase to attend one of our future concerts in 2020–2021.

Donate:
If you would like to show your support and help us divert the great financial impact this has on our organization, we will gladly convert the value of your ticket to a tax-deductible donation and send you an acknowledgement letter.

Refund:
We will refund the value of your ticket upon request through the scheduled performances.

Please contact us if you would like to utilize any of these options. 

We are incredibly grateful for your support of Sacred and Profane. Thank you for your patience and understanding as we make these difficult decisions alongside other local organizations. If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to our Choral Administrator, Michelle Lee at sacredprofane@gmail.com.

S&P goes virtual! It’s so meaningful to connect with our choir family during these times—we’ve even added some feline members to the group!

The music continues, and our Sacred and Profane family persists! Our staff and Board have worked hard to make sure our choir can still maintain it’s sense of community—we’re all getting creative in holding space for our members to connect with and support each other and stay engaged with music-making. We’re looking forward to sharing our new “Social Distan-SING” projects with you.

While this is an incredibly challenging time for artists, organizations, and people all around the globe, we find great comfort in the role that music plays in connecting and consoling our communities in times of duress. We hope you’ll stay connected with Sacred and Profane, and continue sharing in the special power of music. We look forward to sharing song with you again soon. Thank you for being part of our choral community as we navigate these uncertain times together.

On behalf of our Board, Artistic Director, staff, and singers, we're wishing you all good health. We hope to see you at a concert again soon.

Best Regards,

Sacred and Profane, A Chamber Chorus

If you hadn’t purchased tickets previously, and would like to show your support to help us recoup some of the costs of cancellation, you can make a tax-deductible donation below. Thank you for your continued patronage of Sacred and Profane.

Stay connected with us!