welcome
2011-2012 Season
Thank you for visiting the Maryland Choral Society. We are pleased to announce our 2011-2012 season lineup!
Gloria! Festive Music for the Season
December 11, 2011
In Paradisum: Music of Consolation and Remembrance
March 18, 2012
Vaughan Williams: Dona Nobis Pacem
May 20, 2012
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From the Artistic Director
Greetings! I am delighted to welcome you to the 2011-12 season of the Maryland Choral Society.
Our fall concert on Sunday, December 11 celebrates the holiday season with a performance the Vivaldi Gloria, with chamber orchestra and soloists. One of the true high points in Vivaldi's prolific output, the Gloria conveys the joy and drama of that magical moment in the Christmas story when the angels bring their greetings to the shepherds. In the second half of the concert, we will perform a selection of chorales from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio alongside solo and choral movements from Part III of Handel's Judas Maccabaeus. Part III of Handel’s oratorio focuses on the institution of Hanukkah, and the movements that I've selected from each piece celebrate the imagery of light, joy, and peace common to both Christmas and Hanukkah. I think that it will prove to be an effective, unique, and moving combination, and I hope that you will enjoy it.
In March, we present one of the most beloved choral works of all-time, the Requiem of Gabriel Fauré. One of the towering choral masterpieces of the late 19th century, Fauré’s Requiem eschews the bombast and drama of many earlier settings, exploring instead the imagery of grace and hope found at the heart of the Requiem text. Our performance of the Fauré, featuring organ and soloists, will be complemented by two smaller works on the theme of remembrance: Brahms’s exquisite Geistliches Lied, and John Tavener’s mystical Song for Athene.
We conclude the season with a performance of Vaughan Williams's Dona Nobis Pacem on May 20. This piece, written in the years just prior to the outbreak of World War II, blends the poetry of Walt Whitman with the cry for peace ("Dona nobis pacem") from the Agnus Dei. We will perform the piece in the rarely-heard version for strings and piano, a reduced orchestration made by the composer himself. It is a piece of tremendous drama, emotional scope, and eloquence, and it has much wisdom to offer to us and the world in which we live. We pair Vaughan Williams’s insightful treatment of Walt Whitman in the Dona Nobis Pacem with excerpts from Randall Thompson’s Frostiana, pairing the words of two iconic American poets with the music of two of the finest choral composers of the twentieth century.
Balancing some of the most well-known works in the choral repertoire with a number of lesser-known gems, it is my hope that our 2011-12 season will enrich your love of choral music through encounters with new works and the rediscovery of old favorites. Please join us. I look forward to welcoming you at our concerts!
