Music for Double Choir

You’re invited to encounter the beauty and complexity of music written for two choruses, featuring Frank Martin’s enthralling Mass for Double Choir.

Originally written as a personal devotion— “a matter between God and myself”— Frank Martin’s Mass remained hidden from public view for 40 years before the composer allowed its premiere in 1963. The Mass fuses aspects of Renaissance polyphony with modern harmonic and rhythmic expression.  As the musical world honors the 50th anniversary of Martin’s death, experience the awe, anguish, and hope of this sublimely human work.

They also present Bach’s dazzling Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied (Sing to the Lord a New Song), whose scoring for double choir is exploited to its full potential.  Bach’s kaleidoscopic array of textures sees his two choruses echo, support, contrast, compete, and, finally, unite.

Completing their program are two shorter  double chorus works: Raffaella Aleotti’s Surge, propera amica mea (Arise, My Love), written circa 1593; and the world premiere of Andrés Ballesteros’ Ave Maria. A local composer and Jameson Singers tenor, Ballesteros entwines ceremonial Latin in one choir with a more personal and subdued Spanish in the other, creating an exquisite meditation on grief.