CUC Music: Sun Dec 14

This Sunday, CUC’s Choir will be on hand to perform “Hope” by Greg Gilpin and an aria from Giancarlo Menotti’s Christmas-miracle opera Amahl and the Night Visitors, a work they will perform in its entirety at our special holiday concert next Sunday, December 21 at 1pm.

Joaquin Turina (1882-1949)

In addition, Spanish composer Joaquín Turina’s Danzas fantásticas, originally composed for piano and later orchestrated, express December’s theme of Hope in their numerous outbursts of joy of excitement, which seem to well up from evocations of mystery and despair. The composer prefaced each dance with a quote from the Spanish novelist José Mas as follows:

Exaltación:

“It seemed as if the figures in that incomparable picture were moving within the calyx of a flower.”

Ensueño:

“The strings of the guitar sounded like the lamentation of a soul that could no longer bear the weight of bitterness.”

Orgía:

“The scent of flowers mixed with the aroma of Manzanilla, and from the bottom of the slender glasses, full of incomparable wine like an incense, joy arose.”

Click here to preview these piano works in a performance by CUC Music Director Adam Kent from Burgos, Spain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4d0a6aYJTQ. See below for more program details.



Prelude
Danzas fantásticas -- II. Ensueño and III. Orgía
Joaquín Turina
Played by Adam Kent, piano

Choral Anthem
Hope
music by Greg Gilpin, lyrics by Pamela Stewart
Sung by CUC Choir directed by Lisa N. Meyer and accompanied by Georgianna Pappas

Offertory
Danzas fantásticas -- I. Exaltación
Joaquín Turina
Played by Adam Kent, piano

Choral Anthem
“This is my box”
from Amahl and the Night Visitors
Gian Carlo Menotti
Sung by
Amahl, Carla Fisher
His Mother, Mary Lane Cobb
Kaspar , Ernie Kennedy
Balthazar, Boris Morocho
Melchior, Matt Haines