Program sponsored by Suzanne Timble

Concert sponsored by Sara J. McKenzie

Joshua Habermann, conductor, sponsored by Carmen Paradis and Brian McGrath

This program features two virtuosic works for strings and voices from English composers George Frideric Handel and Tarik O’Regan, whose Triptych the Chorale performed in 2017. First, Dixit Dominus showcases Handel as his most Italianate, with florid decoration and rhythmic drive. We then continue into O’Regan’s work, The Ecstasies Above, which is a setting of Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “Israfel,” describing an angel whose “heart strings are a lute, and who possesses the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures.” A double string quartet and organ join the entire Desert Chorale for this masterful program.