"Laudamus te" -Mass Ordinary

"Let my joyfully streaming face make me more radiant:
Let my hidden weeping arise and blossom" -Rainer Maria Rilke

Mass, for soprano and percussionist, combines fragments of the mass ordinary with fragments of poetry by Forugh Farrokhzad, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi, and Sonia Sanchez.

Percussionist Jon Hess suggested a small, portable percussion setup. We chose a palette of metal percussion featuring tuned bowls and pot lids, adding crotales, tam tam, and a tubular bell. The "found" instruments form the center of the sound, giving this work a resonant and beautiful sound world that suggests timelessness and ritual.

The choice and shape of texts used was a result of a fruitful collaboration between the composer and singer Sonja Tengblad. Sonja imagined a unique work that would fuse poetry and liturgy into an intimate and personal religious statement that could be performed in both concert and worship settings.

Gloria (from "Mass" for soprano and percussion, 2012)

Matthew Peterson (b. 1984) writes music that explores frontiers of sound and expression. He has composed over sixty works commissioned and performed by orchestras, choirs, opera companies, chamber ensembles, and soloists around the world. He lives in Dalarna, Sweden.

Gloria (from "Mass" for soprano and percussion, 2012)

composer Matthew Peterson