I think people naturally and instinctively want to experience transcendence, resolution and the feeling of redemption, joy and peace that the resolving of discord can yield.” A lot of art pushed audiences away for some time. Dissonance and high chromaticism is important to explore the Modernists were brave to delve into parts of the human psyche that are dark and edgy, but I do think they got somewhat stuck in that. Of just inf licting the listeners with our own neurosis. But in a great deal of avant garde art, the goal seems to be to stay in the conf lict itself, which to me becomes a way And in most areas of society, conf lict is something we very much want to resolve. Gjeilo says: “There isn’t anything wrong with dissonance, as conf lict and discord is a natural part of life and necessary for all positive development and maturation. The two choirs weave under and over each other, each making crescendo and diminuendo, the entries dovetailing, sometimes creating a deliberate dissonance as they overlap. Gjeilo describes the opening movement, The Spheres, as “f loating in space, in deep silence, between stars and planets.” The choir and orchestra enter divisi and pianissimo, each singing a single syllable from the Kyrie text, taking over from each other with another syllable of the same or a different word. He has created a number of scores for short f ilms his interest in this medium is palpable in the tone-painting (portrayal of visual effect through sound) in the Sunrise Mass for Choir and String Orchestra (2008) that we perform today. Gjeilo’s musical inf luences include classical, jazz, and folk music, in particular Keith Jarrett, Philip Glass and John Adams. His music is receiving worldwide attention. He has received many commissions and prizes, has beenm Composer-in-Residence for the Grammy-award winning Phoenix (Arizona) Chorale, conducted by Charles Bruffy, and has been featured on PBS. He has also studied f ilm composition and scoring at the University of Southern California. Sunrise MassĬomposer Ola Gjeilo has earned degrees from the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, the Royal College of Music, London, and the Juilliard School, New York. Textual repetitions, especially of the onomatopoeic festina, “hurry,” create a playful urgency.
The rapid-f ire antiphonal exchanges between the two groups return in the third section. By contrast, in the middle section, the two groups sing and play in unison, with restrained passion. In the f irst section, each choir takes a turn at leading and answering the other.
The whole piece is all of two and a half minutes in duration, and the choirs sing only the one sentence, but there are three structurally distinct sections, A-B-A, making a small but tasty musical sandwich. The music requires that the ensemble, both choir and orchestra, divide into two groups, collaborating with and opposing each other. One might expect a supplication for single-pointed prayer to be somber, but Vivaldi applies his signature sparkle in setting the second of these sentences, Domine ad adjuvandum me festina (“O Lord, make haste to help me”) to give us a zesty little gem of a piece. The supplicant recites these prefatory lines to implore the assistance of God in warding off distractions to prayer. Two Latin sentences introduce all the prayers of the Liturgy of the Hours of the Roman Catholic Church. Notes by Shulamit Hoffmann © 2013 Texts and Translations Domine ad adjuvandum me festina (3 minutes) The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass–Carol Barnett (b. (4 minutes) Maple Leaf Rag– Scott Joplin (1867-1917) (12 minutes) Down to the River to Pray–Traditional American, arranged by Sheldon Curry Kennedy at Madison Square Garden on November 25, 1963, Leonard Bernstein said: “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” St Paul’s Suite (Op. At a United Jewish Appeal tribute to John F. Viva la Musica dedicates our performance of Sunrise Mass to the victims of the Boston bombing. Identity (Sanctus) & The Ground (Benedictus/Agnus Dei)
(2.5 minutes) Sunrise Mass– Ola Gjeilo (b. Blue Skies, Blue Grass Concerts Spring 2013ĭomine ad adjuvandum me Festina (Psalm 69) RV 593–Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)