Last concert

Americana

This concert featured music by some of the United States most celebrated modern composers and collections of spirituals by British composers.

Samuel Barber (1910-1981) was an award winning composer of orchestral, choir, piano and opera. The concert included three of his works: To Be Sung on the Water, Agnus Dei, and Sure on this Shining Night. 

We followed these with A Boy and a Girl, and Sleep by Eric Whitacre (b. 1970), a Grammy award winning composer known for his choral, orchestral and wind ensemble music.

Finally, a setting of the traditional O Magnum Mysterium composed by Morten Lauridsen (b. 1943) was performed. 

The spirituals were from Michael Tippett's A Child of our Time and John Rutter's Feel the Spirit.

Soprano, Katie Hind, was a real hit. She accompanied the spirituals with feeling and passion and added texture to the Agnus Dei.

Our accompanist, Ashley Thompson played Euday L. Bowman's Twelfth Street Rag. Euday's style was known as Texas Blues. Although he did not gain the recognition of traditional rag-time composers, such as Scott Joplin, some of his sheet music (and even a marimba band recording from 1920) can be found in the Library of Congress.