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Our 2024-2025 season!

Made in America: Four Centuries of American Music

       Sunday, November 3, 2024, 3:00 p.m.

       St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church

Dresden: The Great Garden

       Sunday, March 9, 2025, 3:00 p.m.

       St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church

A Family Affair: Tracing four musical families

       Sunday, May 18, 2025, 3:00 p.m.

       Immanuel Lutheran Church

Made in America
Made in America
Four Centuries of American Music 
Jay Carter and Ryan Olsen, conductors


Sunday, November 3, 2024 at 3:00 PM
St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church
6630 Nall Avenue
Mission, KS

Musica Vocale presents choral works from across the American tradition;  Alice Parker’s Melodious Accord and additional works by Chester Alwes, Samuel Barber, Colin Britt, Aaron Copland, Nathaniel Dett, Gerre Hancock, and Ned Rorem.

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American musical traditions are as varied as our people, and in past seasons Musica Vocale has explored our musical connections many other traditions.  Made in America continues this exploration with music from the 17th century Colonial experience and partners it with the later works from the Spiritual tradition, Appalachian folk hymnody, and contemporary works with roots in earlier music of the United States.


At the center of the program is Melodious Accord, a large work based on early American hymns by the celebrated composer Alice Parker.  After her death in December, 2023 the New York Times noted that “...her devotion to choral song over eight decades, and her conviction that communal singing was a deeply human activity, gave her a distinctive place in American music.”  Melodious Accord applies Parker’s trademark gift for clarity and beauty to Colonial-era music, and the resulting pieces simultaneously honor both the past and the present.


Alongside Melodious Accord are songs from the Spiritual tradition, and music by contemporary composers - all of them works that share some of Parker’s musical fingerprint.  Chester Alwes’ The Lord to me a Shepherd is comes from the Bay Psalm Book (1640), the first published text in the Massachusetts Bay colony.  The music of the Spiritual tradition is represented in arrangements by Gerre Hancock and Nathaniel Dett, one of the first Black American musicians to receive formal musical training and achieve broad notoriety.  The twentieth century American giants Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, and Ned Rorem are represented in a series of lesser-programmed original works that exhibit lyrical beauty and textual clarity.  Two works by living composers, Colin Britt and Gwyneth Walker, round out this sampler of American works.

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Program

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Chester Alwes (b. 1947)

            The Lord to me a Shepherd is

Alice Parker (1925–2023)

            Melodious Accord 

Ned Rorem (1923–2022)

            Sing my soul his wondrous Love

Nathaniel Dett (1882–1943)

            Gently, Lord, O Gently Lead us

            Let us cheer the weary traveler

Aaron Copland (1900–1990)

            Thou, O Jehovah, Abideth Forever

Colin Britt (b. 1985)      

            Afternoon on a Hill                                                                     

Samuel Barber (1910–1981)

            Two Choruses

                 II. Let down the bars, O Death

Gerre Hancock (1934–2012)

            Deep River (arr.)

Gwyneth Walker (b. 1947)

            Peace Like a River  

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Dresden
Dresden
The Great Garden


Sunday, March 9, 2025 at 3:00 PM
St. Elizabeth Catholic Church
2 E. 75th Street, Kansas City, MO

Celebratory works from Baroque-era Dresden by Heinrich Schütz, Johann Herman Schein, Antonio Lotti, and Jan Dismas Zelenka.

Prior to 1871, Germany did not exist as a formal state. Instead, smaller city states ruled by their own nobles (some members of the Holy Roman Empire) exerted a highly regionalized identity. Situated along the beautiful Elbe river, Dresden was among the most opulent of these regional centers and home to the kings of Saxony.

 

Saxon nobles spent lavishly, and artistic endeavors were especially well-supported during the entirety of the Baroque era (1600–1750). Remarkable architecture, a panoply of exotic goods and influences, and beautifully manicured public spaces led to the city’s moniker, The Great Garden. Dresden’s opulence rivaled cultural centers further south in Vienna, Venice, and Florence – and frequently poached some of those cities' best musicians, writers, and visual artists. Johann Sebastian Bach, disgruntled with his employers in nearby Leipzig, envisioned the capital city as a place where the grass truly was greener, traveling there at least five times for recuperation and artistic inspiration.

 

While the city was unable to count Bach and Handel as long term residents, a series of top-tier composers lived and created in Dresden’s fertile artistic soil.  The Great Garden presents three grand works by Dresden composers who influenced Bach and Handel; Heinrich Schütz (a local native), Jan Dismas Zelenka (a Bohemian transplant trained in Vienna), and Antonio Lotti (a Venetian with Germanic connections).

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Program

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Johann Hermann Schein (1586–1630)

            Ich freue mich im Herrn

            Da Jakob die vollendet hatte

Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672)

            Musikalische Exequien, SWV 279        

Andreas Gleich (1625–1693)

            Selig sind die Toten

Antonio Lotti (1667–1740)

            Credo in F

Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679–1745)      

            Magnificat in D​

A Family Affair
A Family Affair
Tracing four musical families


Sunday, May 18, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Immanuel Lutheran Church
4205 Tracy
, Kansas City, MO

An exploration of works by members of the Bach Family, Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, Robert and Clara Schumann, and Gustav and Imogen Holst.

 

As a rule, impactful artists seldom emerge in a vacuum;  often their inherent talent is nurtured in the crucible of experience and environment.  For a good number of artists, a family connection is an immense influence that nurtures, and sometimes challenges, an individual’s own style. In the Family explores four musical families (the Bach, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Holst families) and their interconnectedness.

 

When the count of Arnstadt needed to hire a lead musician for his court in the late 17th century he is reported to have said “...just find me one of those Bachs” - an evidence of the family’s prominent reputation.  When in his forties, Johann Sebastian lovingly scribed a family genealogy, acknowledging his familial musical heritage, and this document was continued and enlarged after his death by his son Carl Philip Emmanuel.  Johann Sebastian’s elder cousin Johann Christoph and uncle Johann Ludwig nurtured him (and several of his orphaned siblings) after the sudden death of his musical parents when Sebastian was only nine.  They mentored him in the musical fundamentals of partwriting, playing the organ, and writing motets - he was already a fine violinist and an exceptional treble singer thanks to the training of his parents.  Johann Sebasian’s music is the product of a generations-long family enterprise - one that fell into obscurity until the Mendelssohn and Schumann families focused attention on it again, later impacting Gustav and Imogen Holst.

 

The of Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn was not an exclusively artistic one, though their beloved great aunt Sarah Itzig-Levy was a gifted pianist - and a student of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, one of Johann Sebastian’s sons.  Their  paternal grandfather was an important philosopher and Jewish theologian.  Their father Abraham was less well-known, but was a successful businessman and enthusiastic philanthropist.  He was a founding member of the Singakademie zu Berlin - the organization which mounted the first performances of Bach’s passions after his death.  To celebrate Abraham’s birthday in 1819, Fanny (already an accomplished pianist at fourteen) played Bach’s Well Tempered Keyboard from memory - an event etched in her younger brother Felix’s mind.  Both Fanny and Felix grew into prolific composers in their own right, but the Bach fingerprint is undeniably etched on all their work.

 

Robert Schumann and his wife Clara (née Wieck) were contemporaries of the Mendelssohns, and also held reverence for Johann Sebastian Bach’s music - something they noted extensively in their diaries and correspondence.  The source of that reverence stemmed Clara’s father Friedrich Wieck, who was well-versed in Bach’s music.  Friedrich spent his entire life in and around Leipzig where Bach’s influence remained prominent, especially as an educational model.  Wieck used Bach’s music as a fundamental part of training his piano students, who included his daughter Clara and her future husband Robert.  Clara became well known as a virtuosic solo pianist, touring Europe extensively throughout her life.  Robert seemed destined for a similar career as a virtuosic pianist, but injury reduced his capacity to play.  Both Schumanns composed extensively; Clara’s music shows evidence of Bach-influenced technical demands and attention to structure.  Robert music was more experimental, using the name Bach (the notes Bb, A, C, and H - B natural in the German system) as a musical subject in several piano works - something the Bach himself did many times!

 

The Holsts share similarities with both the Bach and Schumann families.  The surname Holst, like Bach, had become synonymous with music making in well-respected musical centers in throughout the Baltic  - though Gustav though of himself as exclusively British.  Like Robert Schumann, medical struggles limited his ability to perform, and composition became his primary focus.  He was especially influenced by Mendelssohn’s music.  Gustav experienced popular success as a composer just as his only daughter Imogen was a teenager.  She rose to prominence as one of the first women to conduct regularly in public, premiering Britten’s Five Flower Songs and leading acclaimed performances of Bach’s Mass in B minor in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of his death.   In 1956 she was named a co-director of Britten’s Aldeburgh Festival, a role she would inhabit until her death in 1984.  Her work conductor, as the primary organizing force of the Aldeburge Festival, and as a writer have largely overshadowed her own musical writing.  Following two generations of neglect (not unlike Johann Sebastian Bach), her compositions are now beginning to experience a well-deserved revival.

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Program

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Uncles and Cousins: The Bach Family

Johann Christian Bach (1645–1693)

            Fürchte dich nicht

            Ich lasse dich nicht, du segnest mich denn

Johann Ludwig Bach (1677–1731)

            Unsere Trübsal

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Siblings: The Mendelssohns - Felix and Fanny

Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847)

            Heilig, MWV B47

            Denn er hat seinen Engeln, MWV B53

Fanny Mendelssohn (1805–1847)

            Gartenlieder (excerpts)

Husband and Wife: The Schumanns - Robert and Clara

Clara Schumann (1819–1896)

            Drei gemischte Chöre (excerpts)

​Robert Schumann (1810–1856)

            Vier Gesange, Op. 52

                    II.  Am Bodensee

Im dunklen Schoß der heilgen Erde (arr. Brahms)

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Parent and Child: The Holsts - Gustav and Imogen

Imogen Holst (1907–1984)

            Welcome joy, welcome sorrow

Gustav Holst (1874–1934)

            Six Choral Folksongs (excerpts)

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