Dear Friends of Sacred and Profane,
I feel like we can all use a little love these days, something gentle and kind to soothe the rancor out there. As is often the case, I had no idea when I programmed S&P’s upcoming International Valentine’s Day concert how deeply we would all be needing something soothing and sweet at concert time. But here we are, and we’re really looking forward to sharing this uplifting music from all over the world with you on Valentine’s weekend. When I started looking for music to sing, it occurred to me that we have singers from far and wide around the globe in our group, and of course all choral singers are masters of language and various international traditions. So I reached out to singers and asked for their favorite choral love songs in languages other than English. The ideas came flooding in, and as a result, the concert feels even more collaborative than usual.
Our longtime singer George-Ann had lots of ideas (G-A knows all the choral music!), including a return to Adinu, the Arabic call for love as the only true religion, as well as La Rosa, a love song in Ladino, the language of the Sephardic Jewish people. Our soprano Katherine suggested a beautiful a cappella piece about universal love by the nineteenth-century Russian composer Sergei Taneyev. Hayley and Enya both longed to sing Lauridsen’s popular Soneto de la Noche, a setting of a poem by the Chilean poet-politician Pablo Neruda. Our tenor Lorenzo raved about the Haitian-American composer Sydney Guillaume’s Renmen Renmen. We got to coach that piece with the composer on Zoom, resulting in some exciting changes, including the addition of a new conga part. Our bass Niek, a native of the Netherlands, recommended a setting of the oldest known Dutch poem, Hebban olla vogola. I was happy to find a beautiful arrangement of Tian Mí Mí, our soprano Jenn’s mom’s (a great S&P supporter) favorite Chinese pop song. Dyana suggested the danceable Son Mercedes from Cuba; Dyana also booked a fantastic percussionist, Rebecca Rodriguez, to play claves on that piece, as well as percussion on a couple of other numbers. Our Chorus Manager Kat turned me on to the Swedish women’s folk quartet Kraja’s romantic Jag såg dig a couple of years ago, and I added in a few of my favorites, including music by the often overlooked and wonderful sixteenth-century composer Maddelena Casulana and the not-at-all overlooked and completely-deserving-of-the-admiration-it-receives Dieu! Qu’il la fait bon regarder by Debussy. I’m also excited to sing the wonderful Filipino American composer Saunder Choi’s Itanong Mo Sa Bituin, a setting of one of that country’s most beloved poets, and Nesta Rua, a Brazilian folk song beautifully arranged by my friend from grad school at the University of Iowa, Daniel Afonso. He will come down from Cal State Stanislaus, where he’s the Coordinator of Vocal and Choral Studies, to coach us before we share it with you.
The result is this moving concert with songs about all kinds of love – from fulfilling love to unrequited longing, from romantic love to universal love of humanity and love as a universally needed source of healing and connection. I hope you’ll come to bask in all this affection at our concerts!
-Rebecca