Wisconsin Chamber Choir’s Spring Concert “Time Pieces”
Join the Wisconsin Chamber Choir for a concert of music about time in its many facets. Our program samples a broad range of poetic and musical interpretations of time, from 2000-year-old religious texts to music written just a few years ago that speaks to the times we live in, today. The wide breadth of repertoire ranges from British Romantic composers Edward Elgar and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, to contemporary Americans Libby Larsen and David Lang, to popular music icons Cole Porter, Bob Dylan, and Dolly Parton.
As human beings, we interact with time in many different ways and on many different levels. The cyclical time of the passing seasons finds voice in Elgar’s passionate O Wild West Wind and Coleridge-Taylor’s luminous Song of Proserpine, both settings of poems by Shelly. One of the most resolute depictions of recurring time is David Lang’s Again (After Ecclesiastes), whose music is based on a mesmerizing, seemingly endless ostinato. Time as longing animates Argentinian composer Carlos Guastavino’s Ojos de tiempo (Eyes of Time) and Cole Porter’s Night and Day, and time as eternity bookends Three Herrick Songs by Boston composer William Cutter.
A special feature of the program is the world premiere of Ever by Minnesota composer, Michael Ferguson, a powerful setting of Shakespeare’s Sonnet XIX, Devouring Time, Blunt Thou the Lions Paws. Another recent work, of particular relevance today, is Minneapolis composer Libby Larsen’s Verdad/True, a 2019 composition that uses texts by Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral to document the pain of migrants separated from their families, who long for the time when they will be reunited.
Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are a-Changin’ hit a nerve in 1964, and Adam Podd’s transcendent arrangement for choir and piano from 2021 testifies to the original song’s continuing relevance. The concert concludes with Dolly Parton’s upbeat anthem about the travails of working 9 to 5.
Tickets are $25 for adults / $5 students, available in advance from www.wisconsinchamberchoir.org or at the door. Discounted tickets are available for children, students, and patrons experiencing financial hardship.
Founded in 1998, the Wisconsin Chamber Choir has established a reputation for excellence in the performance of oratorios by Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Brahms; a cappella works from various centuries; and world premieres. WCC Artistic Director Robert Gehrenbeck, a Professor of Music at UW-Whitewater, has been hailed by critics for his vibrant and emotionally compelling interpretations of a wide variety of choral music. Under his leadership the WCC has presented major works with orchestra as well as innovative programs of rarely heard music by composers from a wide variety of eras, nationalities, and cultures.