Halalisa Singers in Music of Nick Page

Artistic Director Mary Cunningham leads the Halalisa Singers in Shine On! The Music of Nick Page, a full program of music by the beloved Boston area choral master. Page will join the choir for selected pieces and lead an audience sing. Accompanying the singers will be pianist Trevor Berens, percussionist Bertram Lehmann, clarinetist Glenn Dickson and Page himself on steel cello at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 12 at First Parish Unitarian Universalist, 630 Massachusetts Avenue, Arlington. Tickets are $25. Audience masks required. For information call 781-648-5579 or visit http://www.halalisa.org/concerts.

Decades of transcendent music making by song leader, composer, conductor, author, and Mystic Chorale and Halalisa Singers founder Page have made him a Boston area treasure. As he relocates to Missouri, Halalisa is thrilled and honored to present a full program of his choral music.

The program includes the seldom performed “And the Trees Stood Like Beautiful Buildings” set to text by Frank Lloyd Wright. With its incorporation of architectural ideas expressed through music, the towering choral piece reflects Page’s admiration for the renowned architect. “Anu Sharim,” Hebrew for “We Sing,” composed for the 50th anniversary of the Boston area Zamir Chorale, is an epic statement on the power of singing in times of joy and hardship. “In the Presence of the Past” interweaves the inspirational hymns “Amazing Grace” and “Swing Low” with a sweet original melody. As each element is added, the music grows into a breathtaking climax, reminding listeners of the ever present past and the possibilities inherent in building on the work of those who came before us.

Page’s first published piece “Niska Banja” has been sung by more than a million singers. Halalisa presents the Serbian Roma dance, popular throughout the Balkans, with its infectious 9/8 rhythm and Glenn Dickson’s lively clarinet. Page’s sweet setting of the South African lullaby “Thula s’Thandwa” offers a piano part based on the mbira (thumb piano) music of Zimbabwe and quotes the well-known “Rock-a-Bye Baby.” Halalisa’s high voices sing another gentle lullaby, “Fairest Lady,” based on a nursery rhyme.

The choir’s low voices sing Page’s moving a cappella arrangement of Stephen Stills’ “Find the Cost of Freedom,” written after visiting a Civil War battle site. In “Like Sweet Water,” the chorus laces various lines together in a lush, eloquent vocal tapestry that proclaims the triumph of love and joy in the face of death. The contemporary shape note styled anthem “Lights Upon Our Souls” is a brisk a cappella number celebrating renewal. With its spattering of international expressions of the prayerful word “Amen,” the gospel-tinged “Say Amen, Somebody” makes a rousing case for proclaiming one’s faith, whatever it may be.