Fauré Requiem plus Diverse Works of Consolation, Hope, and Gratitude

Coro Allegro, Boston’s LGBTQ+ and allied classical chorus, invites you to join us a moving concert featuring Gabriel Fauré’s transcendent Requiem in D minor, Op. 48, plus diverse works of consolation, hope, and gratitude, all in the gorgeous sanctuary of the Church of the Covenant.

The program opens with two LGBTQ+ composers: Craig Carnahan’s Armistice 1918 (Everyone Sang), evokes “the communal power of voices united in song and the unbridled joy of freedom embodied by birds in flight”; Israeli composer Sivan Eldar’s The Song About the Child sets a poem by Arab-Israeli poet Salman Masalha as a keening lullaby that calls us to choose peace. Viktor Ullmann’s moving choral settings of a Hebrew prayer for redemption and a song of hope, were written to sustain his community during their imprisonment in the Terezín camp in 1943. Black Canadian American composer R. Nathaniel Dett’ s The Chariot Jubilee is glorious oratorio-like work that amplifies and weaves together spirituals of deliverance, while Randall Thompson’s setting of one word, Alleluia, takes us on a journey through reverence, introspection, anxiety, and  hope, before ending in a quiet invocation of peace.

With extraordinary guest artists –Adriana Ruiz, soprano, Aaron Engebreth, baritone, Davron Munroe, and Heinrich Christensen, organ – this concert offers beautiful music making and a moment to come together again, to remember those we have lost, and to express our gratitude for the work of those on the front lines of the pandemic.