With special guests: DeForest High School Bella Voce and Camerata
Join the Wisconsin Chamber Choir for an uplifting concert celebrating the music of Johannes Brahms and related figures. As one of the Romantic era’s most open-minded, cosmopolitan musicians, Brahms was influenced by a wide range of music from outside his own national background. Taking our cues from Brahms’s inclusive approach, the WCC’s program highlights a wide variety of composers from the Renaissance to the present day, encompassing Brahms’s actual friends Clara and Robert Schumann, along with later Brahms fans from Russian, Afro-British, Latin American, and US traditions.
Favorite Brahms works on offer include the stirring motet, Warum ist das Licht gegeben (Wherefore is Light Given), the immortal piano quartet, Der Abend (The Evening), and the beloved part song, In stiller Nacht (In Dead of Night). Besides music by both Schumanns, other Romantic-era composers on the program include Sergei Taneyev, known as “the Russian Brahms,” and the Afro-British prodigy, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, who was inspired to incorporate African melodies in his music by Brahms’s uses of Hungarian music. Brahms-inspired works from our own time include lush music by Jean Belmont Ford and Nico Gutierrez, plus stirring renditions of pieces by Frank Ticheli and Eurydice V. Osterman performed by the choirs of DeForest High School under the direction of Lyrica Daentl. Pianist Mark Wurzelbacher enriches the program with his sensitive artistry.
Tickets are $25 for adults / $5 for 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.