Name: Sacred Place(s)
Start: 2024-05-15T00:00:00.000Z
End: 2024-05-15T00:00:00.000Z
Location: Distler Performance Hall (Tufts University)

Organization

Admin

Chorus pro Musica

Conductor

Jamie Kirsch

Others

Sacred Place(s)

Medford

United States

Distler Performance Hall (Tufts University)

Public

Sacred Place

Carrickfergus (arr. Ivory)

Mummelsee, op.95-1

Quilt Songs ("Women Weaving the Fabric of Life")

Folk Lullabies from Around the World

Matias Vergara Moyano

Approved

May 15, 2024, 8:00 pm
Distler Performance Hall, Tufts University

Embark on a captivating musical journey through “Sacred Place[s],” exploring diverse cultures and breathtaking natural sites worldwide. Experience the serene beauty of Alex Berko’s “Sacred Place” and the heartfelt melodies of “Carrickfergus.” Find inner peace with “Nearly Insane” and marvel at the wonders of the Black Forest in “Mummelsee.” Lastly, cherish the tender themes of “Yeke, Omi Mi” as it celebrates maternal love. Join us for this transcendent experience in the world of music.

MUMMELSEE
The Mummelsee is a lake in the Black Forest of Germany that was the source of many legends and tales. August Schnezler, an early 19th century collector of legends and author of fiction and poetry, wrote the poem that forms the text of this piece. In addition, he wrote two other poems about the lake and its stories: Die Lilien and Mummelsees Rache. The name itself comes from the vernacular German, “Mummeln,” for white waterlilies, or Nymphaea Odorata, which were plentiful in the lake.

Joseph Rheinberger (1839–1901) was a composer who was born in Liechtenstein and lived in Bavaria most of his life. He wrote a lot of sacred music, as well as operas, symphonies, chamber music, and choral pieces. A leading composer of the Cecilian movement, Rheinberger incorporated earlier harmonic styles along with the romantic harmonies of his time and was particularly known for his many organ works.

Mummelsee is a piece that has fallen into obscurity in our times. It tells a rollicking tale of the mysterious lake in which the water lilies blow in the wind until night falls when they are transformed into nymphs and they crawl out of the water, to dance to the sounds of the wind blowing through the reeds. The music evokes their entwining themselves into a ring and swaying in the breeze until a thunderous voice sends them, frightened, back into the lake.
—Stephanie Engel

HAVAA’s lullaby
This piece was written for our God-Daughter Havaa. Since her father is a jazz musician, we thought it appropriate to write it in a mixed meter, which only increased the motion of the melodies. This can be sung as a duet or by multiple sections of a choir. It should stay fairly quiet throughout, like a true lullaby. “Havaa’s Lullaby” has been used crib-side as well as on stage in a Nation concert.
—Jocelyn Hagen and Timothy C. Takach

YEKE, OMO MI
Yeke, Omo Mi is a Nigerian lullaby that is one of five movements in my suite “Folk Lullabies from Around the World” (2022–23). This suite for choir, percussion, and piano is a co-commission for Chorus pro Musica and the Arlington-Belmont Chamber Chorus.

I was especially drawn to this lullaby because of its upbeat tempo and beautiful melody. The rhythmic pattern in this lullaby is known as Omele and belongs to the Yorube-speaking people, but it is popular with all Nigerians.
—Rebecca Sacks

NEARLY INSANE
At the end of her description of the quilt titled “NEARLY INSANE,” Kay McCarthy asks, “Was I nearly insane to make this quilt?” This question really resonated with me musically, but I couldn’t put the pieces together as a lyric. I asked poet Mary Moore Easter if she could work on a text, and what she created worked perfectly for me. Her phrases became pieces/patterns of the quilt that I could weave, overlap and stitch together musically. This “piece” may drive you nearly insane unless you simply listen to the whole in the way that you might first see the quilt at a distance.
—Ysaÿe Barnwell

SACRED PLACE
Sacred Place is an ecological service that connects the old with the new, the sacred with the secular, and the individual with their community. The outline of the work is a Jewish service. However, rather than Jewish prayers, the text is made up of various writers and thinkers who speak of the environment as a place of safety, comfort, and beauty. Written for SATB choir, piano, violin, and cello, the six-movement piece is at times a meditation and at times an impassioned prayer for the world we inhabit and share.
—Alex Berko

CARRICKFERGUS
Carrickfergus is a heartbreakingly beautiful traditional song from Northern Ireland whose exact origins are unclear and are disputed to this day. There are many versions, with different lyrics and sentiments, and theories abound about the different place names and identifiers. But it has captured the hearts of generations of listeners, and recordings are available of the song sung by artists as disparate as Joan Baez, Jim Morrison, Loudon Wainwright, 10,000 Maniacs, and many others.

Sean Ivory has been the vocal music instructor at Forest Hills CentralHigh School since 1992. He is the director of the Grand Rapids Symphony Youth Chorus and its select treble ensemble, Mandala.

English

Sacred Place(s) by Berko, Music, Irish Folk, Rheinberger, Josef Gabriel, Ysaye M. Barnwell, Rebecca Sacks, Frá (2024/2024), Hljómsveitarstjóri Jamie Kirsch, Distler Performance Hall (Tufts University), Medford, United States

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