A New Era
Program
| Der Herr denket an uns, BWV 196 1. Sinfonia 2. Coro |
Johann Sebastian Bach |
| Blessed City, Heavenly Salem | Edward Bairstow |
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Kaitlyn Hess, soprano |
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| Schicksalslied, Op. 54 | Johannes Brahms |
| Strum | Jessie Montgomery |
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Susan Jensen, Grant Houston, violin Amelia Hollander Ames, viola Kett Lee, cello Ian Saunders, double bass |
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| Always Beginning | Music by Michael Gilbertson Poem by Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah |
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World Premiere Music and poem commissioned by The Spectrum Singers | |
| Of Moon and Sun 1. The Moon |
Jan Van der Roost |
| Heaven-Haven (A Nun Takes the Veil) | Samuel Barber |
| Come, Renew Us | Eleanor Daley |
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Marissa Maney, soprano |
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| Song of Proserpine | Samuel Coleridge-Taylor |
| Measure Me, Sky! | Elaine Hagenberg |
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Jenny Calahan, soprano |
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Commissioned Composer
The works of Michael Gilbertson have been described as “elegant” and “particularly beautiful” by The New York Times, “vivid, tightly woven” and “delectably subtle” by the Baltimore Sun, “genuinely moving” by the Washington Post, and “a compelling fusion of new and ancient” by the Philadelphia Inquirer. He was one of three finalists for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his Quartet.
Gilbertson’s works have been programmed by the Minnesota Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Washington National Opera, Albany Symphony, New World Symphony, Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony, Santa Barbara Symphony, Virginia Opera, wind ensembles including The United States Marine Band, and professional choirs including Musica Sacra (NY), The Crossing, Volti, Conspirare, The Swedish Radio Choir, and Yale Choral Artists.
He holds degrees from The Juilliard School, where he studied composition with Samuel Adler, John Corigliano, and Christopher Rouse, and from Yale where he studied with Aaron Jay Kernis, Martin Bresnick, David Lang, Ezra Laderman, Han Lash, Christopher Theofanidis, and Jeanine Tesori. He currently serves as Associate Professor of Composition at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee.
Gilbertson is the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Lieberson Fellowship, a Copland House Residency Award, five Morton Gould Awards from ASCAP, and a BMI Student Composer Award. His published music includes choral works with Boosey & Hawkes and G. Schirmer, and orchestral works with Theodore Presser.
Commissioned Poet
Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah is a Ghanaian American poet, editor, and educator living out the diaspora in Boston, Massachusetts. They are both Black & alive. Born in 1993, Emmanuel is Boston’s newly appointed poet laureate, and the school librarian at the Joseph Lee School in Dorchester. In the past, Emmanuel has served as a high school English teacher at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, and as a teaching artist at organizations such as the Massachusetts Literary Education and Performance Collective, the Cambridge Arts Council, Northeastern University, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. The pursuit of joy, and that which sustains life, is essential to Emmanuel’s creative practice, and to their practice of living. Emmanuel’s chapbook “not without small joys” (published by Game Over Books Press) explores the centrality of joy as an animating force, especially in the face of human suffering. In his free time, Emmanuel enjoys hot carbs, brightly colored chapbooks, and the long sigh at the end of a good book.
Guest Artist
Karen Harvey is an accomplished pianist, composer and conductor and a two-time recipient of fellowships to the Tanglewood Music Center. She has been a featured soloist with numerous orchestras and premiered dozens of compositions; her solo recital at the Wang Center under the auspices of the Griffin Music Ensemble was hailed as “brilliant work by pianist with an infinite supply of fingers.” (Josiah Fisk, the Boston Herald)
Ms. Harvey has served in a Minister of Music capacity for over four decades, most recently for 31 years at the United Church of Christ in Norwell, where she directed four vocal and handbell choirs in a vibrant music program. The Sanctuary Choir performed at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and for high mass at the Vatican in Rome, where she also conducted. The Celestial Ringers performed at Epcot Center in celebration of Disney’s 50th anniversary.
As a collaborative artist, Ms. Harvey has performed and recorded with many area ensembles, including in Boston’s Jordan Hall and Symphony Hall with the Cantata Singers. She has served as pianist for the Boston Pops Holiday Chorus and the Boston Ballet Company, and for several years directed the Holiday Chorus at Faneuil Hall Marketplace.
Ms. Harvey is currently an Affiliate Artist at M.I.T., where she is pianist for the Chamber Chorus, and Interim Music Director at the Union Church in Waban. She has recorded two solo piano CDs entitled Musical Meditations for the Christmas Season I and II.