Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986) Ubi caritas

Choir of the Ascension
Benjamin Rivera, Choirmaster

Maurice Duruflé: Ubi caritas

BAD#F#BD#

for SSAATTBB chorus

In the Academy Award winning movie “Life of Pi”, the title character Pi Patel makes the statement, “None of us knows God until someone introduces us.” In December 2012, I had the privilege of spending the New Year with my family in Southern California to watch my brother perform with the UW-Madison Marching Band at the Rose Bowl. While we were there, we took a drive from Los Angeles down to San Diego, taking the coastal highway. On that breathtaking journey, I was very spiritually moved, and reflecting on this text while watching the incredible imagery just outside the window, I imagined how someone might react when first being introduced to this text, especially if they had never been introduced to God before. The repetition of text to reflect understanding, the transition from one powerful chain of timeless words to the next, and the breadth of emotions expressed in the entire core of the Christian faith in six short lines are the foundation of this piece. 

The translation is as follows:

Adoramus te Christe,                                  We adore you, O Christ,
et benedicimus tibi:                                     and we bless you:
quia per sanctam crucem                           because your holy cross
et passionem tuam,                                     and Passion
redemisti mundum.                                    redeemed the world. Domine, miserere nobis.                                          O Lord, have mercy on us.

Score can be purchased at www.heidijoosten.com

Adoramus Te

Performed by Bella Voce, directed by Andrew Lewis

in the half light of dusk

How impossible it is
to be alone
the one thing humanity 
       has never really
moved towards

—Lorine Niedecker

This song was written for the senior recital of a classmate at UWEC as part of a set of poems by Wisconsin women writers in April of 2014.  When first presented with this poem by Lorine Niedecker, I was immediately moved at how sixteen words could be so incredibly relevant to the millennial generation. Through social media and technology, we are never truly “alone” thanks to the thousands of connections we have made.  However, this “six degrees of separation” has caused us to truly separate ourselves from each other, trading instant messaging for face-to-face conversation.  “Voluntary Solitude” was inspired by the uncertainty in the words “has never really” and how the author chose to offset that text in the poem alignment.  The extreme range use of the piano represents the numerous connections and “friends”, “followers”, and connections we have at our fingertips.  The reaching inside the piano to muffle the notes C and A are a direct reflection on how we make the conscious decision to detach ourselves from the real world and communicate via technology at our own discretion.  People voluntarily choose to ignore messages, fail to return phone calls, and communicate unless it benefits them, resulting in true loneliness, even if a friend list states otherwise.

“The great myth of our times is that technology is communication”—Libby Larsen

Score can be purchased at www.heidijoosten.com

Voluntary Solitude

Kurt Knecht's setting of the Rumi poem Az Mohabbat.

Through love a prison becomes a rose bower 
Through love dregs taste like pure wine 
Through love the stake becomes a throne 
Through love the King becomes a slave
Through love dead comes to life

Through Love / Az Mohabbat

Eugenia and I finished working through my audition rep, and we decided to make a little more music just for fun. 

Che Gelida Play Around

Performed by the Byron Consort of Harrow School, directed by Philip Evans, who commissioned it

O Salutaris Hostia

This piece was inspired by my journey on the Camino de Santiago in the summer of 2018, and it is dedicated, broadly, to all those who find themselves on a difficult journey, whether external or internal.

"Wildernesses" sets several texts: primarily, a poem from Rabindranath Tagore's "Gitanjali"; secondarily, responses from pilgrims who walked the Camino de Santiago when asked why they completed it; and finally, the words "for you, kiddo," which I found scribbled on at least a dozen signposts while walking the Camino.

Commissioned by the Wicker Park Choral Singers, completed in November 2018, and premiered by the ensemble on June 1, 2019.

Mark's Farewell Concert (6/1/19)

Through the Wildernesses of Worlds — double choir a cappella

Ed Frazier Davis (b. 1989) is an English-American composer, baritone, and conductor living and working in Chicago. He is the founder and artistic director of Vox Venti, a semi-professional chorus which focuses largely on works by living composers and is proudly dedicated to commissioning new works from LGBTQ+ composers, women composers, and composers of color on every concert.

 

Described as "at once deeply emotional and sublime" (KC Arts Beat) and lauded for its "compelling, […] colourful orchestration" (Musical Toronto), Ed's music is polystylistic and draws from many eclectic influences, from Renaissance madrigals and Anglican church music to postminimalism and video game music. He has composed for a wide variety of media, but as an experienced singer he has a particularly strong affinity for writing for choirs. His compositions have been commissioned and performed throughout the world by many renowned performers and organizations, including Access Contemporary Music, the ACDA National Convention, the Aspen Music Festival, the BBC Singers, The Crossing, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, PLEXUS, and the Toronto Children's Chorus. He has been named a winner or finalist in numerous contests, including the American Prize in Choral Composition, Chanticleer's Student Composer Competition, the Missouri Composer's Project, and the Young New Yorkers' Chorus's Composition Competition. Ultimately, he seeks to write music that breaks established artistic binaries—e.g. traditional vs. modern, accessible vs. unfamiliar—to create art that is fulfilling to as wide an audience as possible.

 

As a singer, Ed has consistently performed both ensemble and solo work with dozens of ensembles across the United States. He frequently performs with organizations including Bella Voce, the Chicago Choral Artists, the Chicago Symphony Chorus, and the Grant Park Music Festival Chorus. In Kansas City, where he lived from 2016 to 2022, he served for five years as bass section leader and assistant choirmaster at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, sang six seasons with the William Baker Festival Singers (for whom he also served as composer-in-residence), and sang four seasons with the Grammy-winning Kansas City Chorale. He has also worked intensively with Chanticleer as part of their Sonoma Choral Workshop, and was recently an Artist-in-Residence at the Des Moines Choral Festival.

 

Ed has studied composition at Knox College, the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City, primarily with Marta Ptaszyńska, Kyong Mee Choi, Stacy Garrop, Chen Yi, James Mobberley, and Zhou Long. He has studied voice with Sarah Moran, Stacey Tappan, Jim Collins, Gianna Rolandi, and Vinson Cole.

Through the Wildernesses of Worlds — double choir a cappella

Ed Frazier Davis

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