Chiaroscuro: Contrasts of Light and Shade
Concert by Yale Schola Cantorum

Saturday, November 5 | 8pm.
Sprague Memorial Hall, 470 College Street, New Haven.

Free and Open to the Public - no tickets available.

Yale Schola Cantorum, the University’s acclaimed chamber choir directed by Simon Carrington, will continue the Chiaroscuro theme begun last year with music of Monteverdi and Dallapiccola. This year’s “contrasts of light and shade” will juxtapose music of Henry Purcell, the finest English composer of the Baroque, with music by the distinguished and iconoclastic American composer Morton Feldman (1926 – 1987). The concert, which is free and open to the public, will take place Saturday, November 5 in Sprague Memorial Hall in New Haven (470 College St.).

The Schola Cantorum will perform Purcell’s celebratory Welcome to all the pleasures – Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day and O Sing unto the Lord for choir with soloists, strings, and continuo. On the other end of the spectrum, Rothko Chapel is Feldman’s answer to a commission to compose a tribute to the American painter Mark Rothko, who created his chapel in Houston as a place “for contemplation where people of all faiths, or of none, may meditate in silence, in solitude or celebration together.” The program also includes pieces by British composers Giles Swayne and Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, written as contributions to “A Garland for Linda,” a musical tribute to Sir Paul McCartney’s wife, who died of cancer in 1998.

Vocal soloists from the graduate voice program of the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and School of Music will be Mellissa Hughes and Abigail Haynes, soprano; Ian Howell and Sylvia Rider, alto; Derek Chester and Steve Wilson, tenor; and Douglas Williams and Joshua Copeland, bass. The Yale Collegium Players, directed by Robert Mealy, and instrumental soloists from the Yale School of Music will perform.

The concert is presented by Yale Institute of Sacred Music with Yale School of Music.