UA’s Symphonic Choir and Arizona Choir join for a concert exploring the topic of inclusion. The performance concludes with the combined ensembles singing “All of Us” from “Considering Matthew Shepard” by Craig Hella Johnson. The choirs will be featured in April on a performance of this work by the professional ensemble Conspirare as part of UA Presents.
Symphonic Choir presents a potpourri of music of composers who are not frequently represented on concert programs. Their portion of the program features Baroque works by Mexican composer Antonio Salazar, Italian Jewish composer Salamone Rossi and Italian organist/composer Vittoria Aleotti. Mezzo-soprano Diana Peralta is featured on Lili Boulanger’s mellifluous setting of Delavigne’s “Hymn to the Sun.” Closing out this portion of the program are powerful works by African-American composers including Rosephanye Powell, David Baker and UA student Donté Alexander Ford.
The Arizona Choir offers two regional premieres in response to contemporary discussions of national identity. They open their half of the program with the Southwestern premiere of David Lang’s “The National Anthems,” featuring the UA Graduate String Quartet. This Pulitzer Prize-winning composer sets one line from each of the world’s national anthems in an attempt to find a sort of meta-anthem that recognizes that “we are insecure about our freedoms, that freedom is fragile, and delicate, and easy to lose.” The ensemble concludes their set with the Southwestern premiere of Saunder Choi’s “The New Colossus” on the immortal words of Emma Lazrus’ poem by the same name: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
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TICKETS: Free admission
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