VocalEssence – Philip Brunelle, artistic director

Performed during the finale concert of the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists at the Cathedral of St. Paul.

United States Premiere The work was commissioned for and first heard in connection with the reconsecration of the celebrated Frauenkirche in Dresden in 2005. The National Lutheran Choir and Magnum Chorum joined VocalEssence in this premiere at the Cathedral of St. Paul during the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists.

I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world
and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were Young!
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
bottom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
—Langston Hughes

The Ensemble Singers gave the world premiere of this commissioned work by Minnesota composer Eric Barnum, based on a text from Dante's Divine Comedy. This  piece was selected through Barnum's participation in the 2006 VocalEssence/American Composers Forum Essentially Choral program.

Psalm Dances by Daniel Godfrey, a professor of musical composition at Syracuse University. The words are adapted from the Psalms by Stephen Mitchell, John Milton, David Rosenberg, John Davies and the composer himself. These texts invoke praise and joy — as well as loss, in a movement dedicated to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. This fascinating piece featured the Ensemble Singers and eight instrumentalists.

A second performance occurred on Saturday, January 20, 2007 - 8:00pm.

The World Beloved, a piece by composer Carol Barnett and librettist Marisha Chamberlain. This world premiere was composed for the VocalEssence Ensemble Singers and Monroe Crossing, the Midwest's leading bluegrass and gospel quintet.  A second performance occurred on Saturday, January 20, 2007 - 8:00pm.

An immediate success, the work was recorded by VocalEssence and Monroe Crossing and released on Clarion Records in November 2007.

 

 

2006 Welcome Christmas! Carol Winner

Diego Luzuriaga’s “Un Nacimiento” (A Nativity Scene) has both music and lyrics by the composer. With its Latin American flavor, the carol captures the beauty and calm of an Ecuadorian ‘coplas’ (folksong). Luzuriaga was born in Loja, Ecuador, and studied at the Quito Conservatory, the École Normale in Paris, the Manhattan School of Music and Columbia University in New York. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1993 and has received commissions from ensembles and orchestras spanning the globe.

Additional performances occurred on:

 

2006 Welcome Christmas! Carol Winner

John Rommereim composed “Calm On the Listening Ear of Night” based on an 1834 poem by Edmund Sears (well known for his poem, “It Came Upon The Midnight Clear”). Rommereim states, “The poem depicts the Christmas landscape with fresh and surprising imagery, from ‘wild Judea’ to the ‘blue depths of Gallilee’.” The piece emulates early American music with open harmonies and strong text accents. A professor of music at Grinnell College in Iowa, Rommereim is also founder of the Baroque Orchestra of Iowa and is currently at work on several commissioned pieces for choir, organ and recorder. He holds degrees from St. Olaf College, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the University of Kansas.

Additional performances occurred on:

 

The Minnesota premiere of Hannibal Lokumbe's dramatic salute to the spirit of Rosa Parks, scored for soloists, chorus and orchestra and originally commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.