Albany Pro Musica to end season with music hall performance
TROY, N.Y. » Albany Pro Musica ends its 37th season this weekend with a program that aims to be beautiful and moving.
Lux Aeterna will serve as the Albany Pro Musica Masterworks Chorus and Orchestra’s grand finale for the season.
The performance is scheduled for 3 p. m. on Sunday at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, as the season closes with two major works of symphonic choral literature.
These compositions, Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna and Michael Haydn’s Requiem are neat to capture the human spirit in profound and beautiful, albeit, very different, ways.
Lauridsen - who was named “American Choral Master” by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2006, and in 2007 received the National Medal of Arts - composed Lux Aeterna (Eternal Light) in response to his mother’s final illness. In his own words Lauridsen said, “I found great personal comfort and solace in setting to music these timeless and wondrous words about light, a universal symbol of illumination at all levels- spiritual, artistic and intellectual.”
Under the shadow of his famous brother Joseph, composer Michael Haydn (1737-1806) was known for writing beautiful music, of which Requiem is considered his masterpiece. He composed his Requiem in response to the death of his dear friend, Prince Sigismund Graf Schrattenbach, who was also a patron of the musical arts. Completed on New Year’s Eve of 1771, just two weeks after his friend’s death, Haydn also composed the work in the shadow of the death of his only child in January of the same year. These very personal losses for Haydn inspired him to write his most memorable work.
Like these composers, patrons of Albany Pro Musica were invited to pay tribute to a lost loved one through this concert of music centered around the theme of remembrance. The name of the person they are honoring will be listed in a special program insert as well as on a digital screen in the lobby of the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall on the day of the show.
Artistic director José Daniel Flores- Caraballo will conduct the upcoming concert featuring these two masterworks, from two contrasting eras, to be presented in one special performance.
“Nothing captures the essence of the human spirit like music,” Flores- Caraballo said. “In moments of distress, music has an amazing power to help us process grief. It also helps us
celebrate life’s joyful moments and communicate our innermost feelings. And so, as we close this very special season, we take a moment to remember those who have been a light among us: APM’s Founding Artistic Director, David Griggs-Janower, on this, the fifth anniversary of his passing; APM’s patron and generous supporter, Roger Hannay; and every one of our loved ones who has departed. Certainly, their spirit and light remain among us. May light eternal shine upon them.”
Tickets to Lux Aeterna are available for $45, $35 each in person at the box office, by phone at 518-2730038 or online at albanypromusica.org. Discounted student tickets are available for $15 each.