SANTA FE DESERT CHORALE ANNOUNCES 2018 SUMMER FESTIVAL PROGRAMMING DETAILS, INCLUDING A COMMISSION BY PAUL JOHN RUDOI.
THREE DISTINCT CONCERT PROGRAMS BETWEEN JULY 21 AND AUGUST 9, 2018.
TEN FULL CHORAL CONCERT PROGRAMS AND ANCILLARY FESTIVAL PROGRAMMING TO TAKE PLACE IN SANTA FE.
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR JOSHUA HABERMANN CELEBRATES HIS TENTH ANNIVERSARY. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Santa Fe, New Mexico, July 2, 2018: The Santa Fe Desert Chorale (SFDC) announced today final programming details for its 36th Summer Festival which will take place in venues throughout Santa Fe between July 21 and August 9, 2018. The 2018 Festival Season is comprised of ten full choral performances and four ancillary events. In addition, four events under the umbrella of the newly launched Stephen and Jane Hochberg Youth and Family Programming Initiative will take place.
Opening night, July 21, 2018, will celebrate Artistic Director Joshua Habermann’s Tenth Anniversary with the Chorale. A presentation will be made by Board President Sherry Kelsey at the sold-out opening night dinner at La Posada, prior to the opening night concert at The Church of the Holy Faith. (Please see attached detailed program schedule.)
Bernstein, Bolcom, and Barber: Twentieth Century American Masters, a concert program celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Leonard Bernstein, the 80th birthday of William Bolcom, and the music of Samuel Barber, will open the season at The Church of the Holy Faith. Stephen and Jane Hochberg are the Program Sponsors. Guest Conductor Craig Jessop, formerly Music Director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, will lead this all-American program. Sixteen of the Santa Fe Desert Chorale singers, pianist Nathan Salazar, and percussionist Kyle Nielsen will perform repertoire demonstrating the full range of Bernstein’s compositional oeuvre: from Missa Brevis to West Side Story selections. William Bolcom’s May Day, set to texts by Ralph Waldo Emerson and composed for the poet’s bicentennial, and Samuel Barber’s Reincarnations round out the program. (Full concert repertoire is attached for all programs.) Free public pre-concert lectures will be given by Kathleen Ritch, a soprano in the ensemble and the On-air Announcer for KHFM, Classical Public Radio Albuquerque/Santa Fe, 90 minutes prior to each concert. The pre-concert talks are sponsored by the New Mexico Humanities Council, with additional support from Margie Edwards and Ellie Edelstein.
Assistant Conductor George Case will offer free season preview sessions at four Senior Living Centers in Santa Fe in advance of opening night.
“Sure on this Shining Night”: Choral Works that Evoke the Beauty of the Natural World is the second program in the 2018 Summer Festival. Susie and Jerry Wilson are the Program Sponsors for these full-Chorale performances that will be presented at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. Joshua Habermann conducts this program which takes its name from Morten Lauridsen’s setting of James Agee’s poem. An arrangement of composer Paul John Rudoi’s “Two Falling Stars” from Song of Sea and Sky, commissioned by the Santa Fe Desert Chorale for mixed chorus, will be premiered. The repertoire spans five centuries: from Claudio Monteverdi’s Ecco Mormorar L’Onde composed in 1590 through the demanding In the Beginning composed by Aaron Copland in 1947 for a cappella choir and mezzo-soprano soloist.
Nathan Salazar is the collaborative pianist, whose season performances are sponsored by Suzanne M. Timble. Concert sponsors are Janice L. Mayer (In Memory of Russell F. Mayer and David Russell Mayer), Judy and Bob Sherman, and Guy and Catherine Gronquist. The performances will be preceded by pre-concert talks by University of New Mexico Associate Professor David Bashwiner PhD. Dr. Bashwiner’s talks are made possible by a grant from the New Mexico Humanities Council.
The final program, The New World: Journey from the Inca Trail, features an exciting first collaboration between Caminos del Inka, Inc. and the Santa Fe Desert Chorale. Founded by Miguel Harth-Bedoya, “Caminos del Inka, Inc., a not-for-profit organization, has been created to discover, preserve, expand and disseminate the rich musical legacy of the Americas through cultural and musical research, composition, publication, performance, education and outreach.” Joshua Habermann will conduct the full 24- person professional Chorale and twelve instrumentalists in music that examines music of the “New World,” tracing its migration from Spain and Africa through the Caribbean, into the six countries that border the Inca Trail, and on through Central America, Mexico, and into New Mexico. Caminos del Inka instrumentalists are sponsored in part by Phil Martin. Fabiana Van Lente images culled from the Caminos del Inka archive in Peru will offer insight into how a sense of place influences music and art. The editing and projection of the images is supported in part by Kirk and Sheila Ellis. The Latin American Baroque concert sponsors are James Murphy and Roxanne Howe-Murphy, the Curtiss T. and Mary G. Brennan Foundation, and William H. Lynn and Russell M. Coffield. Pre-concert lectures will be given by Michael Shih, a founding member of the Caminos del Inka Ensemble and Concertmaster of the Fort Worth Symphony, and are sponsored by Janusz and Brahna Lauger Wilczynski. Additional support for the pre-concert talks is provided by the New Mexico Humanities Council.
Ancillary programming under the Insights & Sounds mantle includes a Caminos del Inka Chamber instrumental program (flute and string quartet) curated by Michael Shih and Miguel Harth-Bedoya at the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art with a presentation of Peruvian art works from the collection by Chief Curator, Josef Diaz. The program on Tuesday, August 7, 2018 at 4 pm, is sponsored in part by David H. and Kay Duke Ingalls in honor of Lorna Calles and her dedication to the Museum. An insightful discussion of Black Place landscapes led by artist Michael Namingha, and co-sponsored by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, will be illustrated by musical selections from the “Sure on this Shining Night” program performed by a quartet of Santa Fe Desert Chorale vocalists. The program will take place at Niman Fine Art on July 26, 2018 at 6 pm.
Additional programs illuminating the responsibility for stewardship of the natural environment with musical excerpts by Chorale vocalists, include talks given by Rev Talitha Arnold who will speak on “A Desert Faith for a Desert Time” (July 27, 2018 at 5 pm) and by former Santa Fe Mayor David Coss, who in his role as Chair of the of the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club, will speak on “Inspirational Terrain: Artistic Creation in New Mexico” (August 3, 2018 at 5 pm). Both talks will take place at United Church of Santa Fe.
The new Stephen and Jane Hochberg Youth and Family Programming Initiative sponsors four programs this summer. The Secret Life of Plants and Wetlands Wanderings are presented in conjunction with the Santa Fe Botanical Garden. SFDC soprano Emily Noël, who is also trained as a Class A Park Ranger, will lead these two sessions for children on July 25, 2018 at 9:30 am and Saturday, August 4, 2018 also at 9:30 am. On August 5, 2018 at 1 pm, a septet of SFDC vocalists, harpsichordist Kathleen McIntosh, and Joshua Habermann will appear as part of the Museum of International Folks Art’s family day. Music from The New World: Journey from the Inca Trail will be performed as part of the Museum’s program “The Art of Community in Latin America. Two “Instrument Petting Zoos” will take place at the New Mexico History Museum led by members of the Caminos del Inka Ensemble. The identical interactive sessions for families are scheduled at 10:30 am and 2:00 pm.
Artist biographies will be available on the Santa Fe Desert Chorale website (www.desertchorale.org) beginning on July 9, 2018.
About the Santa Fe Desert Chorale:
Founded in 1982 by Lawrence “Larry” Bandfield, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale is one of the longest continually performing professional music organizations in New Mexico, as well as one of the most distinguished. In his review of the American Voices program, Scott Cantrell of The Dallas Morning News wrote “The variety certainly displayed the ensemble’s impressive versatility. Habermann consistently got vivid performances, introspective music elegantly colored and shaped, extrovert fare delivered with great pizzazz. Individual singers got lots of solo exposure.”
Now in his tenth season, Artistic Director Joshua Habermann leads the Chorale in repertoire spanning seven centuries, from early polyphony to contemporary works. The composition of the Chorale is truly national in scope and the ensemble is recognized among the finest American chamber choirs. A recent highlight was an invitational appearance at the American Choral Directors Association National Conference, which was later broadcast by Minnesota Public Radio. In the 2017-2018 season, the Chorale toured to Chicago, Dallas, Fort Worth, Los Angeles, and Oklahoma City, and presented regular winter and summer seasons in New Mexico. Now in its 36th year, the Desert Chorale summer festival season is a centerpiece of the cultural life of Santa Fe, and among the nation’s most significant choral events. The Chorale’s first commercial release, The Road Home, launched at No. 3 on the Billboard Classical Chart this spring, following a sold-out CD Launch program here in Santa Fe. Gramophone reviewed the disc, writing “Joshua Habermann’s ensemble are style chamelions…performing them all with full-wattage brilliance and brio.”
Throughout its history, the Chorale has maintained a commitment to give voice to music from Hispanic and Native American communities. Dedicated to advancing the composers of our time, the Chorale has commissioned 23 works by 19 composers;
three-quarters of the composers commissioned have been American. In addition, another seven works have been given their world or American premieres by the Santa Fe Desert Chorale. The ensemble performs at historical sites in Santa Fe such as the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi and Loretto Chapel, as well as other venues throughout the Southwest.
The Desert Chorale prides itself on its strong relationships within the community of Northern New Mexico, and enjoys collaborations with the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Interfaith Community Shelter, Museum of International Folk Art, Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, New Mexico History Museum, Performance Santa Fe, Santa Fe Botanical Garden, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Santa Fe Opera, and Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, among others. Community engagement and fostering the next generation of singers and arts administrators are integral parts of the Chorale’s mission.
Ticketing Information:
Concert tickets are available on the website www.desertchorale.org or by phone (505)988-2282. Prices range from $25 to $85. Student tickets (with ID) are available for $10. Groups of 10 or more save 10%.
Pre-concert talks, Rev Talitha Arnold and David Coss’ talks, and Stephen and Jane Hochberg Youth and Family Programming Initiative sessions are offered free of charge to the public. Reservations are requested.
