Dear Friend of Sacred and Profane,
Last year, as I was brainstorming Sacred and Profane’s 2023-2024 season concert themes and repertoire, I could never have anticipated how relevant our upcoming December concert theme Reflections of Peace would become Even more, the specific works that I chose for a variety of reasons became much more poignant a couple months ago, well into our rehearsal process, as the war in the Middle East erupted and the catastrophe of that conflict has continued to reverberate across the world, adding to the horrors already felt in Ukraine, Congo, and elsewhere. We have been feeling the emotional pain of these conflicts in Sacred and Profane, and singing this music in our weekly Tuesday night rehearsals has been a salve. I am hopeful that you will also receive peace and comfort as you listen.
The first work in our program is Adinu, an Arabic setting of texts by the 13th century Sufi mystic and philosopher Ibn’ Arabī, who proclaimed at the end of his life that the only true religion was the religion of love. I had the opportunity to prepare this piece with one of its arrangers, André de Quadros, when we co-directed a Prison music – University choir exchange program in 2015. This experience was life-changing for me, and the opportunity to work with André demonstrated to me the potential of choral music to be a force for social change. Preparing the piece with Sacred and Profane for this concert, our bass Niek Veldhuis connected us with his UC Berkeley colleague, Nora Jacobsen Ben Hammed, a professor of Middle Eastern literature and philosophy, who helped us to gain a deeper understanding of the Arabic text and Ibn’ Arabī’s important contribution to Sufi mysticism. Staying in the Medieval era, we then turn to the great early Renaissance master Josquin des Prez’ “Agnus Dei” from his Missa sexti toni “L’homme armé.” I first heard this piece when a fellow graduate student prepared an edition for an early music chamber choir that a few of us put together when I was a doctoral student at the University of Iowa. I’ve never forgotten how the imitative melodies swirl around each other, creating a cascading sea of beauty. Arvo Pärt’s Da pacem Domine is a perfect follow-up, as Pärt seems to be the modern-day Josquin, with his neo-Medieval musical language and deeply moving music that has earned him so many fans and made him among the most popular living composers of Western Art music.
The biblical text Peace I Leave With You has inspired numerous composers to write choral settings. There’s something about the poem’s message of unconditional acceptance and escape from the daily stresses of the world that we can all use. The first time I heard this text I heard was when I sang the Norwegian composer Knut Nystedt’s setting years ago. His beautiful and complex piece is much loved in the choral world and I’m happy to share it with you this weekend. We’ll also be singing settings by two Swedes – Fredrik Sixten, whose music is championed by the previous SF Symphony Chorus conductor Ragnar Bohlin, and the up and coming Martin Åsander, whose music I’ve recently discovered. I was happy to find that the wonderful early-20th century composer, Amy Beach, composed a lovely setting of the text – I love her choral music and I’m excited that she’s beginning to receive more attention.
When I attended the Chorus America conference in San Francisco this past May, I met Vince Peterson, whose work with crossover pop-classical choral music is remarkable. He’s written a few fabulous arrangements for San Francisco’s own Chanticleer. Sacred and Profane created a virtual choir video of his Cells Planets during the Covid lockdown year and we’ll be singing his Bigger Than My Body this coming May. Vince told me about San Francisco-based composer Nick Weininger, who sings with and writes for International Orange Chorale. Nick has a number of Jewish works, and we are excited to present the premiere of the mixed-choir version of his Oseh Shalom in this concert. This complex and mystical setting of the last verse in the Mourner’s Kaddish delivers moments of light and peace that we are all needing these days. We had the opportunity to coach with Nick recently and we’re happy to have a new connection in the local composer community. We’ll also be returning to the elder statesman of local composers, Kirke Mechem, whose Island in Space is a setting of a speech by Russell Schweickart, the first astronaut to make an unattached spacewalk. Kirke weaves Schweickart’s speech with the words “Dona nobis pacem,” Or “grant us peace,” from the Agnus Dei of the Latin Mass. Kirke suggested this piece to me for Sacred and Profane when we sang his phenomenal cycle Winging Wildly a couple of years ago. I feel so honored to have the opportunity to get to know both Kirke and his remarkable work and we’re lucky to have him in our backyard.
Sacred and Profane audience members have had the opportunity to hear the music of the Swedish composer Karin Rehnqvist in many of our concerts over the years. I love everything about Karin’s music – there’s something truly honest and deeply connected to the earth in her musical language. We last sang Karin’s When I Close My Eyes, I Dream of Peace in 2016, when we presented its U.S. premiere. The setting of the eleven-year-old Croatian boy composed during the Yugoslav Wars is in two movements – the first combines Swedish folk-style singing with a simple, warm statement of the text. The second movement has the choir singing in multiple languages and international musical styles – a call for international peace. When I recently told Karin that we’re singing the piece, she responded “Den passar verkligen in nu,” translation: “it is especially suited to this moment.”
Another composer we’ve become dedicated to in the past few years is the incomparable Trevor Weston, whose Martyrs we co-commissioned with New York’s C4 Ensemble during the lockdown year of 2020-2021 and whose setting of Martin Luther King, Jr.s’ final speech, Visions of Glory, we sang last year. In this concert, we sing his The Gentlest Thing, a setting of the Tao Te Ching. This piece is at once truly peaceful and highly complex. Our solo quartet includes our bass and board president, Mark DeWitt, who has a special connection with Trevor – Trevor was the best man in his wedding to his lovely wife, Sue!
Although he now lives in his hometown of New York, I think of Trevor as an honorary local since he spent several years in the East Bay, completing both his masters and doctoral degrees in composition at UC Berkeley. It’s fitting to follow his work with another local composer and choral devoté, Sanford Dole. Sanford and I have become friends over the past few years as East Bay residents and lovers of what we call “crunchy” choral music. Sanford’s music is more than just crunchy, however. He is a master text painter – his music suggests 1940s film noir, with dramatic shifts that feel like moving through various film-like scenes. We sang Sanford’s Dance Steps in our local composer’s concert in May 2022, and now happy to present his Peace on Earth, a setting of the Bay Area’s own Lynne Morrow’s translation of Friede auf Erden, the same text that Arnold Schönberg set in his famously difficult choral work. We had a blast coaching this piece with Sanford last week and can’t wait to share it with you.
Our final offering will be A Prayer, by the English crossover pop-choral composer and conductor, Ken Burton. The choral world has been introduced to this piece over the last couple of years by the remarkable Jason Max Ferdinand Singers. We often sing in the more refined, clear tone you come to expect of high level choral ensembles, but in this piece the singers get to cut loose a bit and sing with their full, rich voices and our soprano Esther Hulme will give you goosebumps with her awesome solo work in this powerful piece.
While A Prayer is officially our last piece, I’ll end with an enticing hint: you will get to sing with us at the end of our concert! I hope you’ll be able to join us at one of our three performances this weekend as December begins and the holiday season goes into full swing!
Warmly,
Rebecca