Yale Choral Artists to perform premiere of Bresnick’s Oratorio

NORFOLK » The world premiere oratorio, “Whitman, Melville, Dickinson — Passions of Bloom,” with music and libretto by Martin Bresnick, will be performed by the Yale Choral Artists on June 21, 7:30 p.m. in The Music Shed Norfolk. The concert is free. For details, go to http://norfolk. yale.edu/faculty-artist-series/special-events/specialevents-2017-yca/

Vocal soloists include Harold Bloom - James Taylor (tenor); Walt Whitman Brian Giebler (tenor); Herman Melville - Paul Tipton (bass-baritone); Ahab - Glenn Miller (bass); Ishmael - Thomas McCargar (baritone); Emily Dickinson - Kate Maroney (mezzo-soprano); and Emily Dickinson - Sherezade Panthaki (soprano)

The Yale Choral Artists is a professional choir recently founded by the Yale School of Music and the Yale Glee Club to enhance and enrich Yale’s strong commitment to the choral arts. The choir is a project-based ensemble comprised of leading singers from around the country and is directed by School of Music faculty member Jeffrey Douma. Current members of the Choral Artists also perform in the ranks of such acclaimed ensembles as the Trinity Wall Street Choir, Chanticleer, the Handel and Haydn Society Chorus, the Oregon Bach Festival Chorus, Voices of Ascension, Conspirare, and many others, and are also leading concert soloists, particularly in the area of early music.

The Yale Choral Artists made their debut in an all-Handel program led by guest conductor William Christie at Yale and in Zankel Hall in February of 2012. They have since performed as a featured ensemble at the Yale International Choral Festival, the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, have appeared in two productions with the renowned Mark Morris Dance Group, and have presented premiere performances of new works by Hannah Lash, Ted Hearne, and David Lang. Last season included their first collaboration with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra in a program of Britten and Pärt, and a performance of David Lang’s The National Anthems and Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir at the second Yale International Choral Festival. Upcoming projects include a program of motets from the 15th century to the present day, an appearance at the New York Philharmonic Biennial, and a program of new works by Yale composers with the Yale Philharmonia.

Martin Bresnick’s compositions, from opera, chamber and symphonic music to film scores and computer music, are performed throughout the world. Bresnick delights in reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable, bringing together repetitive gestures derived from minimalism with a harmonic palette that encompasses both highly chromatic sounds and more open, consonant harmonies and a raw power reminiscent of rock. At times his musical ideas spring from hardscrabble sources, often with a very real political import. But his compositions never descend into agitprop; one gains their meaning by the way the music itself unfolds, and always on its own terms.

Besides having received many prizes and commissions, the first Charles Ives Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, The Rome Prize, The Berlin Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Koussevitzky Commission, among many others, Martin Bresnick is also recognized as an influential teacher of composition. Students from every part of the globe and of virtually every musical inclination have been inspired by his critical encouragement.

Martin Bresnick’s compositions are published by Carl Fischer Music Publishers, New York; Bote & Bock, Berlin; CommonMuse Music Publishers, New Haven; and have been recorded by Cantaloupe Records, New World Records, Albany Records, Bridge Records, Composers Recordings Incorporated, Centaur, Starkland Records and Artifact Music.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Martin Bresnick’s oratorio, “Whitman, Melville, Dickinson — Passions of Bloom,” will be performed on Wednesday, June 21 at the Music Shed in Norfolk.