Albuquerque Journal | Kathaleen Roberts | Link to article

The Santa Fe Desert Chorale will sing in the season with 10 concerts at its 2018 Summer Festival.

The concert series opens Saturday, July 21, with “Bernstein, Bolcom and Barber: 20th Century American Masters” at Santa Fe’s Church of the Holy Faith.

“We’re celebrating (Bernstein’s) centenary this year,” artistic director Joshua Haberman said.

The program features “Simple Songs” from Bernstein’s “Mass,” his “Missa Breva” and excerpts from “West Side Story.”

“He was that typical American, with loads of influences,” Haberman said. “He was Jewish, but he wrote a Mass that was almost like a musical.”

Guest conductor Craig Jessop, former music director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, will conduct.

“Sure on this Shining Night: Choral Works that Evoke the Beauty of the Natural World” opens Sunday, July 29, at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. The repertoire spans four centuries, from Claudio Monteverdi’s “Ecco Momorar L’One” (1590) through Aaron Copland’s demanding “In the Beginning,” set to the Book of Genesis.

“It’s a 17-minute a cappella work,” Haberman said. “It’s very unusual to have something that long and unaccompanied. There’s very few ensemble groups in the country willing to take that on.”

The final concert, “The New World: Journey From the Inca Trail,” is a collaboration with the instrumentalists of Caminos del Inka Inc., created to preserve and perform the musical legacy of Latin America.

The music spans the 16th to the 18th centuries, examining the baroque sound of the New World. The song selection traces the music’s migration from Spain and Africa through the Caribbean and into the six countries bordering the Inca Trail, on through Central America, Mexico and into New Mexico.

“This will be a multimedia concert,” Haberman said.

Pre-concert talks will be available 90 minutes before each performance.