Serenade to Music

English choral masterworks

Friday, February 10, 2017 | 7:30 PM | Vashon Center for the Arts
19600 Vashon Highway SW, Vashon Island

Saturday, February 25, 2017 | 8:00 PM | Trinity Parish Church
609 8th Avenue, Seattle

with Pre-Concert Lecture by Artistic Director Gary D. Cannon
30 minutes before both performances

In the first half of the twentieth century, English composers wrote some of the most richly beloved masterworks in choral history. Centerpieces include Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Shakespearean Serenade to Music, composed for sixteen soloists, and Benjamin Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia, to a text by W.H. Auden. We also feature the five spirituals that Michael Tippett extracted from his wartime oratorio A Child of Our Time. The concert includes masterworks large and small by Arnold Bax, Frederick Delius, William H. Harris, and William Walton. You will hear gentle pastoralism, soft lament, and vigorous acclamation.

See concert program, with program notes, texts, and translations.

Repertoire

  • Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) – Hymn to St. Cecilia
  • Frederick Delius (1862-1934) – On Craig Ddu
  • Michael Tippett (1905-1998) – Five Spirituals, from A Child of Our Time
  • William H. Harris (1883-1973) – Faire is the heaven
    intermission
  • William Walton (1902-1983) – Where does the uttered Music go?
  • Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) – Serenade to Music
  • Arnold Bax (1883-1953) – Mater ora filium

Performing Artists

  • Charles Robert Austin, bass
  • Julia Benzinger, mezzo-soprano
  • Gustave Blazek, bass
  • Holly Boaz, soprano
  • Gary D. Cannon, conductor
  • Erika Chang, soprano
  • Orrin Doyle, tenor
  • Michael Dudley, baritone
  • Rebekah Gilmore, soprano
  • Jonathan Graber, violin
  • David Hendrix, tenor
  • Emily Hendrix, soprano
  • Brandon Higa, tenor
  • Dustin Kaspar, tenor
  • Christine Knackstedt, mezzo-soprano
  • J. Scott Kovacs, bass-baritone
  • Sid Law, tenor
  • Fred McIlroy, tenor
  • Kathryn Miller, mezzo-soprano
  • Tyler Morse, countertenor
  • Lisa Cardwell Pontén, soprano
  • Andrew Seifert, piano
  • Jonathan Silvia, bass-baritone
  • Charles Robert Stephens, baritone
  • Linda Strandberg, soprano
  • Heidi Vanderford, mezzo-soprano
  • Kathryn Weld, mezzo-soprano