Program in brief

Ave Maria
Franz Biebl (1906-2001)

Made hugely popular by Chanticleer’s performances and recording, Biebl's Ave Maria exhibits his characteristic tenderness, clarity, and simplicity of form. The Ave Maria was originally written for a Munich firemen’s choir to perform at a choral festival.
Sung in Latin

Its motion keeps
Caroline Shaw (b. 1982)

"Time, like the tide, its motion keeps; Still I must launch through endless deeps." Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Caroline Shaw evokes the antiphonal sound of the early English choral tradition. Harmonies overlap overhead as if in reverberant stone cathedrals, creating brief dissonances while one sound decays as the next begins.
Sung in English

Hymn to St. Cecilia
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

One of Benjamin Britten's most loved and performed choral works, the Hymn to St. Cecilia, is perfectly suited to the cathedral’s acoustic environment. Poet W. H. Auden, Britten's friend and collaborator, wrote the text especially for Britten, whose birthday is St. Cecilia’s Day. Auden’s poetry is highly symbolic in its references to St. Cecilia, a Roman martyr of the early Christian church, as the patron saint of music.
Sung in English

Requiem

Herbert Howells (1892-1983)

Written in 1932 but not published until 1981, the premiere of Howells' Requiem was long delayed by the tragic passing of his son Michael in 1935. The piece for unaccompanied double choir combines texts from the traditional Requiem Mass with other sacred texts such as Psalm 23. The music communicates "an exquisite blend of pain and peace" and is among the composer's most beloved works.
Sung in English and Latin

All shall be well
Roxanna Panufnik (b. 1968)

Interested in building musical bridges between faiths, Roxanna Panufnik often writes music incorporating Christian, Islamic, Jewish, and Maronite Syriac chant. All shall be well combines a traditional Polish chant with the writings of the 14th-century female English mystic, Julian of Norwich: “All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
Sung in Polish, Middle English, and modern English

The World is Charged (world premiere)
Karen P. Thomas (b. 1957)

Set to a powerful text by Gerard Manley Hopkins (God’s Grandeur), this world premiere work was commissioned especially for Seattle Pro Musica and cellist Nathan Chan. Blending voices and solo cello, Hopkins’ electrifying poetry is portrayed with excitement and fervor: “The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.”
Sung in English