Music for All Souls, Yale Schola Cantorum, Nov. 5, 2022

Full Program

David Hill conductor, Ethan Haman organ

Kyrie and Gloria from Missa “O quam gloriosum”, Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548–1611)

I Know That My Redeemer Liveth, Cecilia McDowall, (b. 1951)

Credo, from Missa “O quam gloriosum”, Victoria

Standing As I Do Before God, McDowall (Juliet Ariadne Papadopoulos, soprano)

Sanctus and Benedictus from Missa “O quam gloriosum”, Victoria (Juliet Ariadne Papadopoulos, soprano, Molly McGuire, mezzo-soprano, Peter Schertz, baritone, Aurea luce, McDowall)

Agnus Dei from Missa “O quam gloriosum”, Victoria

Intermission

A Hymn for St. Cecilia, Herbert Howells (1892–1893)

Hymn to St. Cecilia, Op. 27, Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) (Sea Han, Deborah Stephens sopranos, Sandy Sharis, mezzo-soprano)

Michaël Hudetz, tenor

Peter Schertz, bass

Peace on Earth, Errollyn Wallen (b. 1958)

Requiem, Howells

I. Salvator mundi

II. Psalm 23

III. Requiem aeternam (I)

IV. Psalm 121

V. Requiem aeternam (II)

VI. I Heard a Voice from Heaven

(Sea Han, soprano, Molly McGuire, mezzo-soprano, Matthew Newhouse, tenor, Jared Swope, baritone)

_______________________________________

The two themes of tonight’s program—remembrance of the dead and the patron saint of music and musicians—are more closely related than they might appear. Both All Souls’ Day and the Feast of St. Cecilia take place in November; both have inspired musicians since time immemorial; and it’s not hard to draw a connection between celebration of the faithful departed and the “holy lady” of W. H. Auden’s “Hymn to St. Cecilia,” the third-century Roman martyr who met her death “with reverent cadence and subtle psalm” as she “Poured forth her song in perfect calm.”

Tomás Luis de Victoria, Missa “O quam gloriosum

Kyrie eleison (Lord have mercy)

Christe eleison (Christ have mercy)

Kyrie eleison (Lord have mercy)

 

Gloria in excelsis Deo (Glory be to God in the highest)

Et in terra pax (And on earth peace)

hominibus bonae voluntatis. (to people of good will)

Laudamus te, benedicimus te, (We praise you, we bless you)

adoramus te, glorificamus te. (we worship you, we glorify you)

Gratias agimus tibi (We give thanks to you)

propter magnam gloriam tuam. (for your great glory)

Domine Deus, Rex coelestis, (Lord God, heavenly King)

Deus Pater omnipotens. (God the Father Almighty)

Domine Fili unigenite Jesu Christe altissime. (Highest Lord Jesus Christ, only begotten Son)

Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, (Lord God, Lamb of God)

Filius Patris. (Son of the Father)

Qui tollis peccata mundi, (You take away the sins of the world)

miserere nobis. (have mercy upon us)

Qui tollis peccata mundi, (You take away the sins of the world)

suscipe deprecationem nostram. (receive our prayer)

Qui sedes ad dextram Dei Patris, (You who sit at the right hand of God the Father)

miserere nobis. (have mercy upon us)

Quoniam tu solus sanctus, (For you alone are holy)

tu solus Dominus, (you alone art the Lord)

tu solus altissimus, Jesu Christe. (you alone are the most high, Jesus Christ)

Cum Sancto Spiritu (Together with the Holy Spirit)

in gloria Dei Patris. Amen. (in the glory of God the Father. Amen.)

 

The greatest Spanish composer of the High Renaissance, Tomás Luis de Victoria cut his musical teeth as a choirboy in his native Avila. The ecstatic visions of Teresa of Avila, then in the throes of her campaign to purify the Carmelite order, colored his early religious experience and may have influenced his decision to enter the priesthood. In due course Tomás’s well-to-do parents packed him off to the newly established Collegio Germanico in Rome, a Jesuit seminary charged with training “fearless warriors for the faith” to defend the Catholic Church against the threat of the Protestant Reformation. Victoria’s weapon of choice would be music—specifically, the richly textured vocal polyphony associated with Palestrina, whom he knew and possibly studied with in Rome.

The four-voice motet O quam gloriosum appeared in Victoria’s debut collection of sacred works, published in Venice in 1572. Eleven years later he recycled some of the music in a “parody” mass—that is, a mass based on a pre-existing work. Although the Missa “O quam gloriosum” lacks the motet’s specific allusions to the liturgy for the Feast of All Saints (the latter’s Latin text begins, “Oh, how glorious is the kingdom where all the saints rejoice with Christ”), its five movements partake of the earlier work’s jubilant, uplifting spirit, with its flowing contrapuntal lines and interlocking points of imitation between the voices. The rising-fourth motif of the opening “Kyrie eleison” (Lord, have mercy) is neatly echoed in the Gloria’s invocation of the Savior “qui tollis peccata mundi” (who take[s] away the sins of the world).

Cecilia McDowall, I Know That My Redeemer Liveth

I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh, shall I see God.

(The Bible, Job 19:25–26; I Corinthians 15:20)

Just as the Catholic mass commemorates Christ’s death and resurrection, so Cecilia McDowell’s I Know That My Redeemer Liveth—set to the familiar text from Handel’s Messiah—celebrates his second coming. Like Victoria’s Kyrie, Handel’s aria begins with an ascending fourth emblematic of the risen Christ. McDowall does them one better, launching her choral meditation with a rising fifth that recurs throughout the anthem, couched in a luxuriant skein of kaleidoscopically shifting colors and textures. Typical of the British composer’s unobtrusively effective word setting are the lulling melismas on the words “them that sleep” and the hypnotically overlapping iterations of “I know” in the final bars. 

Tomás Luis de Victoria, Missa “O quam gloriosum”

Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, (I believe in one God, the Father Almighty)

factorem caeli et terrae, (maker of heaven and earth)

visibilium omnium et invisibilium. (of all things visible and invisible)

Et in unum Dominum, Jesum Christum, (And in one Lord, Jesus Christ)

Filium Dei unigenitum, (the only-begotten Son of God)

et ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula. (born of the Father before all ages)

Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine, (God from God, Light from Light)

Deum verum de Deo vero, (true God from true God)

genitum non factum, (begotten, not made)

consubstantialem Patri, (consubstantial with the Father)

per quem omnia facta sunt. (by whom all things were made)

Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram (who for us men and for our salvation)

salutem descendit de caelis. (descended from heaven)

Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto (He was incarnate by the Holy Ghost)

ex maria Virgine, et homo factus est. (out of the Virgin Mary, and was made man)

Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato (He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate)

passus, et sepultus est, (suffered and was buried, and rose again)

et resurrexit tertia die, secundum Scripturas, (on the third day according to the Scriptures)

et ascendit in caelum, (and ascended into heaven)

sedet ad dexteram Patris. (and sits on the right hand of the Father)

Et iterum venturus est cum gloria, (And the same shall come again with glory)

iudicare vivos et mortuos, (to judge the living and the dead)

cuius regni non erit finis; (of whose kingdom there shall be no end)

Et in Spiritum Sanctum, (And in the Holy Ghost)

Dominum et vivificantem, (the Lord and life-giver)

qui ex Patre Filioque procedit. (who proceeds from the Father and the Son)

Qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur (who with the Father and the Son)

et conglorificatur: (together is worshiped and glorified)

qui locutus est per prophetas. (who has spoken through the prophets)

Et unam, sanctam, catholicam (And in one, holy, catholic)

et apostolicam Ecclesiam. (And apostolic Church)

Confiteor unum baptisma (I confess one baptism)

in remissionem peccatorum. (for the remission of sins)

Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum, (And I await the resurrection of the dead)

et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen. (and the life of the coming age. Amen)

The centerpiece of the mass, the Credo is a ringing affirmation of faith that affords composers abundant opportunities for text-painting. Victoria’s setting starts with a duet for the lower voices that lays a sturdy foundation for an increasingly elaborate contrapuntal edifice—the aural image of “all things visible and invisible.” Lushly cascading vocal lines on the words “descendit de caelis” ([Christ] descended from heaven) give way to a transparently syllabic account of the Savior’s incarnation. Thereafter, Victoria skillfully alternates polyphonic and homophonic textures to ensure maximum intelligibility of the liturgical text.

Cecilia McDowall, Standing As I Do Before God

I have seen death so often that it is not strange or fearful to me. Standing as I do in view of God and eternity, I realize patriotism is not enough: I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone. And when the time was close, for once her eyes filled with tears, then she quietly rose through the stilled prison, the gray dawn light, passed gas flame, tired flowers, out beyond her final night alight in hours before infinity, in the presence of death leaving all enmity in view of God. We are air after breath.

(Edith Cavell, 1865–1915; Seán Street, 1946)

Subtitled “A reflection on the eve of Edith Cavell’s death, October 12, 1915,” McDowall’s solemn choral lament interweaves verses by contemporary poet Seán Street with the famed British nurse’s last words before she was executed by a German firing squad during World War I. “Patriotism is not enough,” the unbowed humanitarian reportedly declared. “I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.” McDowall elevates that declaration, inscribed on Cavell’s monument in London’s Trafalgar Square, into a credo at once personal (in the voice of the soprano soloist) and collective. Incandescent harmonies and chantlike melodies convey an aura of intimate intensity.

Tomás Luis de Victoria, Missa “O quam gloriosum”

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, (Holy, holy, holy)

Dominus Deus Sabaoth. (Lord God of Hosts)

Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria ejus. (Heaven and earth are full of his glory)

Osanna in excelsis. (Hosanna in the highest)

 

Benedictus qui venit (Blessed is the one that comes)

in nomine Domini. (in the name of the Lord)

Osanna in excelsis. (Hosanna in the highest)

Victoria’s contrapuntal mastery is on full display in the fourth movement of the mass. Paired voices move in contrary motion and imitate each other at varying intervals, their interlocking lines weaving a richly textured fabric of sonorities. The florid melismas on the word “terra” (earth)—suggestive of the soul bursting its mortal coils—proliferate in the Benedictus. Both sections of the Sanctus feature the four-note tetrachord that Victoria uses throughout the mass, and both conclude with bright homophonic hosannas. 

Cecilia McDowall, Aurea luce

Aurea luce et decore roseo, (Light of dawn and rosy beauty, Light from Light)

Lux lucis, omne perfudisti saeclulum: (thou hast pervaded all ages: decorating)

decorans caelos inclito martyrio. (the heavens with glorious martyrdom. On this)

Hac sacra die, quae dat reis veniam. (sacred day, which gives pardon to the guilty)

(attrib. Epis, c. 493)

McDowall’s short anthem mirrors Victoria’s celestial imagery, this time evoking the beauty of the Roman sunrise. “Aurea luce” (light of dawn) is set to the first stanza of a Latin hymn by Elpis, wife of the philosopher Boethius, honoring Peter and Paul, the martyred patron saints of the Eternal City.  (Victoria used the entire hymn in another motet.) McDowall’s music is a fluid blend of homophony and polyphony, the choir’s shimmering halos of sound enmeshed in the rippling figurations of the organ.

Agnus Dei (Lamb of God)

qui tollis peccata mundi, (who takes away the sins of the world)

miserere nobis. (have mercy upon us)

Dona nobis pacem. (Grant us peace)

The final movement of Victoria’s mass echoes both the text (“qui tollis peccata mundi”) and music of the “Gloria.” The choir’s insistent plea to the Savior, “miserere nobis” (have mercy upon us), is sung to a simple descending scale, a poignant extension and intensification of the mass’s thematic tetrachord. Victoria’s consolatory music is repeated to the parting words “dona nobis pacem” (grant us peace). 

Herbert Howells, A Hymn for St. Cecilia

Sing for the morning’s joy, Cecilia, sing,

in words of youth and phrases of the Spring,

walk the bright colonnades by fountains’ spray,

and sing as sunlight fills the waking day;

till angels, voyaging in upper air

pause on a wing and father the clear sound

into celestial joy, wound and unwound,

a silver chain, or golden as your hair. 

 

Sing for your loves of heaven and of earth,

in words of music, and each word a truth;

marriage of heart and longings that aspire,

a bond of roses, and a ring of fire.

Your summertime grows short and fades away,

terror must gather to a martyr’s death;

but never tremble, the last indrawn breath

remembers music as an echo may. 

 

Through the cold aftermath of centuries

Ceilia’s music dances in the skies,

lend us a fragment of the immortal air,

that with your choiring angels we may share,

a word to light us through time-fettered night,

water of life, or rose of paradise

so from the earth another song shall rise

to meet your own in heaven’s long delight.

(Ursula Vaughan Williams, 1960)

A prominent figure in England’s modern musical “renaissance,” Herbert Howells drew inspiration from his country’s rich musical heritage. Vaughan Williams remarked on his “intuitive affinity” with the Renaissance masters, as expressed in such artfully archaizing works as the Missa Sine Nomine, composed in 1912 for Richard Terry’s renowned choir at London’s Westminster Cathedral (Howells later served as Terry’s assistant on the monumental Tudor Church Music series of scholarly editions). Composed in 1960, A Hymn for St. Cecilia stands in a long line of works celebrating music’s patron saint; it was commissioned, fittingly, by the Worshipful Company of Musicians. The text by Ursula Vaughan Williams (the wife of fellow English composer Ralph Vaughn Williams) is suffused with images of nature and song. “My St. Cecilia is a girl in one of those magical gardens from Pompeian frescoes, a romantic figure among colonnades and fountains,” she wrote; “Herbert’s tune takes her briskly towards martyrdom.”

Benjamin Britten, Hymn to St. Cecilia, Op. 27

I.

In a garden shady this holy lady

With reverent cadence and subtle psalm,

Like a black swan as death came on

Poured forth her song in perfect calm:

And by ocean’s margin this innocent virgin

Constructed an organ to enlarge her prayer,

And notes tremendous from her great engine

Thundered out on the Roman air.

Blonde Aphrodite rose up excited,

Moved to delight by the melody,

White as an orchid she rode quite naked

In an oyster shell on top of the sea;

At sounds so entrancing the angels dancing

Came out of their trance into time again,

And around the wicked in Hell’s abysses

The huge flame flickered and eased their pain.

 

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions

To all musicians, appear and inspire:

Translated Daughter, come down and startle

Composing mortals with immortal fire.

 

II.

I cannot grow;

I have no shadow

To run away from,

I only play.

I cannot err;

There is no creature

Whom I belong to,

Whom I could wrong.

I am defeat

When it knows it

Can now do nothing

By suffering.

All you lived through,

Dancing because you

No longer need it

For any deed.

 

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions…

 

III.

O ear whose creatures cannot wish to fall,

O calm of spaces unafraid of weight,

Where Sorrow is herself, forgetting all

The gaucheness of her adolescent state,

Where Hope within the altogether strange

From every outworn image is released,

And dread born whole and normal like a beast

Into a world of truths that never change:

Restore our fallen day; O re-arrange.

O dear white children casual as birds,

Playing among the ruined languages,

So small beside their large confusing words,

So gay against the greater silences

Of dreadful things you did: O hang the head,

Impetuous child with the tremendous brain,

O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain,

Lost innocence who wished your lover dead,

Weep for the lives your wishes never led.

O cry created as the bow of sin

Is drawn across our trembling violin.

O weep, child, weep, O weep away the stain.

O law drummed out by hearts against the still

Long winter of our intellectual will.

That what has been may never be again.

O flute that throbs with the thanksgiving breath

Of convalescents on the shores of death.

O bless the freedom that you never chose.

O trumpets that unguarded children blow

About the fortress of their inner foe.

O wear your tribulation like a rose.

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions

To all musicians, appear and inspire:

Translated Daughter, come down and startle

Composing mortals with immortal fire.

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions…

(W. H. Auden, 1942)

A professed pacifist, homosexual, and agnostic, Benjamin Britten paradoxically came to be widely regarded as the most quintessentially English composer since Purcell. He had little sympathy for the patriotic effusions of the older generation, aligning himself instead with mavericks like Frank Bridge and William Walton. In 1938 Britten moved to the United States with his lover, the tenor Peter Pears. Returning to England four years later, he made his mark with the opera Peter Grimes, in which he aimed to “restore to the musical setting of the English language a brilliance, freedom, and vitality that have been curiously rare since the death of Purcell.” Hymn to St. Cecilia, written on a Swedish steamer in the mid-Atlantic, was first heard in a BBC broadcast on the saint’s feast day, November 22, 1942 (which also happened to be the composer’s birthday). In keeping with Auden’s powerful poem, Britten divides the hymn into three contrasting sections, punctuated by a radiant refrain calling on Cecilia to “appear in visions to all musicians” and “startle composing mortals with immortal fire.”

Errollyn Wallen, Peace on Earth

And snow falls down on me. 

Peace on earth.

The night is dark and soft.

Peace on earth.

The lights that sparkle in the square,

The smoke that lingers in the air.

Peace on earth.

And grace falls down on me.

Peace on earth.

The dark will turn aside.

Peace on earth.

The fires that burn in every hearth

Do sing our praise of Christmas past.

Peace on earth.

Hear them singing.

Peace on earth.

(Errollyn Wallen, 2006)

Errollyn Wallen’s Christmas-themed carol is simplicity itself: each of the two unison verses consists of four phrases (AABC), set against a pointillistic keyboard accompaniment suggestive of falling snow. But varying phrase lengths, harmonic twists, and slight modifications of rhythm and melodic shape prevent the contemplative mood from spilling over into monotony. In her introduction to The Errollyn Wallen Songbook, the Belize-born composer writes that “all these songs were written from my heart and in a state of grace,” and encourages performers from different backgrounds to “imbue their performances of this music with their own creative spirit.”

Herbert Howells, Requiem

I. Salvator mundi

O savior of the world, who by thy cross and thy 

precious blood has redeemed us, save us a help us, 

we humbly beseech thee, O Lord. 

(The Book of Common Prayer, 1979)

II. Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd: therefore can I lack nothing.

He shall feed me in a green pasture: and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort.

He shall convert my soul: and bring me forth in the paths of righteousness, for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: thy rod and thy staff comfort me.

Thou shalt prepare a table before me against them that trouble me: thou hast anointed my head with oil, and my cup shall be full. 

But thy loving-kindness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

(The Bible, Book of Psalms)

III. Requiem aeternam (I)

Requiem aeternam dona eis. (Rest eternal grant unto them)

Et lux perpetua luceat eis. (And may light perpetual shine upon them)

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine. (Rest eternal grant unto then, O Lord)

IV. Psalm 121

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills: from whence cometh my help.

My help cometh even from the Lord; who hath made heaven and earth.

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: and he that keepeth thee will not sleep.

Behold, he that keepeth Israel: shall neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord himself is thy keeper: he is thy defense upon thy right hand.

So that the sun shall not burn thee by day: neither the moon by night.

The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: yea, it is even he that shall keep thy soul.

The Lord shall preserve thy going out, and thy coming in: from this time forth and forevermore.

(The Bible, The Book of Psalms

V. Requiem aeternam (II)

Requiem aeternam dona eis. (Rest eternal grant unto them)

Et lux perpetua luceat eis. (And may light perpetual shine upon them)

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine. (Rest eternal grant unto then, O Lord)

VI. I Heard a Voice from Heaven

I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, from henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: even so saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labors.

(The Bible, Revelation 14:13)

In the published score of his Requiem, Howells states that “although written in 1936, this work was not released for performance until 1980, for personal reasons.” The octogenarian composer was either misremembering or obfuscating deliberately. The “personal reasons” to which he alluded can only have been the death of his nine-year-old son in 1935, a tragedy that eventually bore fruit in Howells’s luminous Hymnus Paradisi. The fact that the Requiem actually predated the boy’s death by three years—and that Howells integrated parts of it into the Hymnus Paradisi—suggests that he retrospectively read that traumatic experience into the earlier work. Regardless, the deeply personal meaning that the Requiem clearly had for Howells heightens, rather than diminishes, its power as a response to the universal experience of loss.

In combining passages from the Anglican and Catholic burial services with Psalms 23 (“The Lord is my shepherd”) and 121 (“I will lift up mine eyes”), and soothing modal harmonies with grating dissonances and cluster-like chords, Howells invested the Requiem’s six movements with an ecumenical spirit that transcends specific musical and religious traditions. The a cappella chorus is frequently subdivided into as many as eight parts, supplemented by declamatory, almost speech-like solos that accentuate the directness of the four English-language texts (Only the two movements from the Catholic liturgy are sung in Latin). While the overall tone is subdued, the choir swells to a majestic climax on the words “Et lux perpetua” in the second “Requiem aeternam,” an ecstatic vision of eternal life.

 

Notes © by Harry Haskell

A former editor for Yale University Press, Harry Haskell is the author of The Early Music Revival: A History and a program annotator for Carnegie Hall in New York and the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin. In Her Own Wright, his new podcast about the Wright Brothers’ sister Katharine, is available on iTunes and other outlets.

Sea Han is a Korean-American soprano, keyboardist, and researcher specializing in early Western art music and the music of living, “global” composers. Born and raised in Queens, New York, they attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in Manhattan. They earned a bachelor of music in vocal performance from Westminster Choir College, studying with Margaret Cusack. A chorister and a creative recitalist, Han is at Yale to actively move the classical music scene away from its white supremacist and capitalist ideologies toward a safer space for people of color and other marginalized individuals, specifically, queer, non-Christian, transgender, neurodivergent, disabled, and unhoused people.

Emily Helferty is the youngest of eleven children and grew up singing and performing with her family in the Ottawa Valley of Canada. She was introduced to and fell in love with classical music at age ten, when she began taking voice lessons. Emily holds a bachelor of music in Vocal Performance from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, where she was awarded the Queen’s Medal in Music. From there, she came to the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, where she is pursuing a master’s degree as a returning alto in the Voxtet. Emily regularly sings in Catholic liturgies and has a particular interest in solo sacred music repertoire.

Michaël Hudetz, tenor, is a first-year MMA Voxtet student from Batavia, IL. He received his master’s degree in Voice/Opera from Northwestern University. Michaël has sung with many professional ensembles including The Crossing, Chicago Symphony Chorus, Grant Park Chorus, and Chicago a Cappella.

Hailing from Bellingham, Washington, mezzo-soprano Molly McGuire is an enthusiastic performer of all styles of classical voice repertoire. As a recent resident of Boston, she has performed regularly with et al., the Cantata Singers, and the Choir of King’s Chapel as both a chorus member and soloist. Outside of Boston, McGuire has performed with the VOCES8 Foundation, Bach Akademie Charlotte, Quintessence Choral Festival in Albuquerque, and the Des Moines Choral Festival. Recent performances include a staged production of The Play of Daniel with the Boston Camerata and Handel’s Solomon with Cantata Singers.

Tenor Matthew Newhouse brings power, tenderness, and evocative story-telling to the concert stage. A rising name in concert, ensemble, and historically informed performance, Matthew’s recent performance highlights include Handel’s Messiah with Apollo’s Fire and the New York Philharmonic, tenor solos in Haydn’s Die Schöpfungmesse with Yale Schola Cantorum, and arias from Bach’s BWV 37 Wer da gläubet und getauft wird with Emmanuel Music. Other professional ensemble engagements include collaborations with The Thirteen, Emmanuel Music, and St. Thomas More Chapel Choir. Matthew performed as a soloist with the Houston Masterworks Chorus, Juilliard415, Baylor Chamber Singers and Symphony Orchestra, and the New Mexico Philharmonic. Matthew gave his Carnegie Hall debut as the winner of the 2019 Semper Pro Competition. He is an avid proponent of Icelandic vocal repertoire, and strives to incorporate Icelandic works into the classical music canon. Matthew holds a bachelor of music in vocal performance from Baylor University.

Juliet Ariadne Papadopoulos is a Greek-American soprano. Her recent performances and honors include playing Susanna in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and winning SUNY Purchase’s Concerto Competition. She has performed with Carnegie Hall’s The Somewhere Project, at Symphony Space, and on Broadway with Kristen Chenoweth. Other recent accomplishments include playing Belinda in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Constance in Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites. Juliet has performed as a soprano soloist for Mozart’s Exsultate Jubilate, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Vaughan Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem, Schubert’s Magnificat, Brahms’s Liebeslieder Waltzes, and C. P. E. Bach’s Magnificat, all with full orchestra. Juliet discovered a love for early music while singing with NYC’s Voyces as a child and continued her classical training at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art. Juliet graduated summa cum laude from SUNY Purchase’s Opera program in May of 2022 and is now pursuing her musical studies in the Early Music Voice program at Yale University.

Peter Schertz is a baritone from New Jersey. A regular church musician and choral singer, Peter has sung in ensembles in central New Jersey and Philadelphia, including the Philadelphia Orchestra Symphonic Choir, the Princeton Festival Baroque Chorus, and most recently, The Lotus Project of New Jersey, a non-profit ensemble that partners with charitable humanitarian organizations. Peter holds a bachelor’s degree in sacred music from Westminster Choir College, where he performed choral works regularly with The Philadelphia Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic. Peter was also a member of the Westminster Kantorei and Concert Bell Choir, and can be heard on Westminster Kantorei’s recording Lumina.

Sandy Sharis is delighted to join the Yale Voxtet and especially enjoys performing in the choral and early music genres. Her summer training includes the Festival Lyrique de Belle-Ile-en-Mer, Norfolk Chamber Choir Institute, International Baroque Institute at Longy, Aquilon Music Festival, and Duke Chapel ChorWorks. In 2019, Sandy was named first place winner in the Great Lakes region of the NATS Artist Awards competition, and was a finalist in the Kentucky Bach Competition. She has performed in the Duke Chapel Bach Cantata Series and will join Seraphic Fire and the VOCES8 US Scholars Programme during the 2022–2023 season. Sandy earned a BM at Furman University, a master’s degree at The Ohio State University, and is now pursuing an MMA degree at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music.

Deborah Stephens, soprano, performs with professional choral ensembles such as Kinnara, Coro Vocati, and the Lake Junaluska Singers, and is a sought-after freelance soloist. In 2017 she founded and directed VERITAS Vocal Ensemble, a small group of students at the University of Georgia who are passionate about choral singing. VERITAS has performed on the UGA Student Spotlight Concert and at faculty and student recitals, and hosted a joint-ensemble benefit concert to support music education. Stephens earned a bachelor of music degree in voice performance from the University of Georgia.

Acclaimed for having a voice “perfectly suited to Baroque music” (KCMetropolis), baritone Jared Swope sings in a multitude of genres spanning early music, contemporary choral, oratorio, opera, and more. Recent solo engagements include Bach’s cantata Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme with CORO Vocal Artists and Mass in B Minor with the JSB Ensemble, Handel’s Messiah with the Spire Chamber Ensemble, and Telemann’s Johannespassion with the JSB Ensemble. Swope has performed internationally with conductors Helmuth Rilling, Jos van Veldhoven, and Hans-Christoph Rademann. He can also be heard on recordings of Michael John Trotta’s Seven Last Words and Chorosynthesis’s Empowering Silenced Voices.

Ethan Haman (Organ MM ’21 MMA ’22) from Fremont, California, is the staff accompanist for the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and director of music for the Episcopal Church at Yale. He is also the organist and assistant conductor at Noroton Presbyterian Church in Darien, CT, and staff accompanist for the Greater New Haven Community Chorus. Prior to his studies at Yale, he graduated from the University of Southern California with a BM degree in composition and organ performance, studying with such esteemed teachers as Cherry Rhodes, Andrew Norman, and Morten Lauridsen. He has gone on several study trips to Paris and Lyon, France for immersion into the French tradition of organ performance and improvisation. Ethan performs regularly throughout the United States and internationally both as an organ recitalist and in collaboration with various ensembles. He has performed in such notable venues as Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and the church of Notre Dame d’Auteuil in Paris. His recitals often feature extensive improvisations. In addition to his performing activities, Ethan teaches improvisation both privately and in workshops for universities as well as local chapters of the American Guild of Organists. He is regularly commissioned to compose new choral and keyboard music, and he enjoys recording organ and improvisation videos for his YouTube channel. www.ethanhamanmusic.com

David Hill has a long and distinguished career as one of the leading conductors in Europe. He has held appointments as chief conductor of the BBC Singers, musical director of the Bach Choir, chief conductor of the Southern Sinfonia, music director of Leeds Philharmonic Society, and associate guest conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

In the 2019 New Year’s Honours for services to music, Hill was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). He has also been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Southampton, an honorary Fellowship of the Royal School of Church Music, and an honorary membership to the Royal Academy of Music. He has been Master of the Music at Winchester and Westminster Cathedrals, music director of the Waynflete Singers, artistic director of the Philharmonia Chorus, and director of music at St. John’s College, Cambridge.  

Guest conducting credits include some of the leading musical ensembles of Europe: the London Philharmonic, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Choir, and the RIAS Kammerchor, Berlin. Hill also maintains an active career as organist and pianist in recitals worldwide.

With over one hundred recordings to his credit, Hill has performed virtually every style and period in the choral repertoire from Gregorian chant to Renaissance polyphony, from Baroque oratorios to modern masterpieces for chorus and orchestra. He has commissioned dozens of works from leading composers of today, including Judith Bingham, Francis Pott, Patrick Gowers, Sir John Tavener, Philip Wilby, and Jonathan Dove. 

At Yale University, Hill serves as principal conductor of Yale Schola Cantorum, and participates in the training of choral conducting majors with Jeffrey Douma and Dr. Felicia Barber.

Yale Schola Cantorum

David Hill principal conductor

Masaaki Suzuki principal guest conductor

Jeff Hazewinkel manager

Matthew Newhouse, Sarah Shapiro, Yiran Zhao student managers

Matthew Cramer, Ed Jones preparers

Ethan Haman rehearsal accompanist, organist

Yale Schola Cantorum is a chamber choir that performs sacred music from the sixteenth century to the present day in concert settings and choral services around the world. It is sponsored by the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and conducted by David Hill; Masaaki Suzuki is principal guest conductor. Open by audition to students from all departments and professional schools across Yale University, the choir has a special interest in historically informed performance practice, often in collaboration with instrumentalists from Juilliard415. Schola was founded in 2003 by Simon Carrington. In recent years, the choir has also sung under the direction of internationally renowned conductors Marcus Creed, Matthew Halls, Simon Halsey, Paul Hillier, Stephen Layton, Sir Neville Marriner, Nicholas McGegan, James O’Donnell, Stefan Parkman, Krzysztof Penderecki, Helmuth Rilling, and Dale Warland. In addition to performing regularly in New Haven and New York, the ensemble records and tours nationally and internationally. Most recently, Hyperion released Schola Cantorum performing a chamber version of the Brahms Requiem and recordings of the music of Roderick Williams, Tawnie Olson, and Reena Esmail. Schola’s 2018 recording on the Hyperion label featuring Palestrina’s Missa Confitebor tibi Domine has garnered enthusiastic reviews. A live recording of Heinrich Biber’s 1693 Vesperae longiores ac breviores with Robert Mealy and Yale Collegium Musicum received international acclaim from the early music press, as have subsequent CDs of J. S. Bach’s rarely heard 1725 version of the St. John Passion and Antonio Bertali’s Missa resurrectionis. On tour, Schola Cantorum has given performances in England, Hungary, France, China, South Korea, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Japan, Singapore, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, India, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Germany.

Soprano

Cora Hagens, B.A. ’24 (Cognitive Science)

Sea Han*, M.M. ’23 (Early Music Voice)

Jaqueline Kaskel, B.A. ’24 (English Language and Literature)

Juliet Ariadne Papadopoulos*, M.M. ’24 (Early Music Voice)

Frances Pollock, D.M.A. ’25 (Composition)

Deborah Stephens*, M.M. ’23 (Early Music Voice)

Yiran Zhao, M.M. ’23 (Choral Conducting)

Alto

Renée Barbre, Ph.D. ’26 (Music Theory)

Emily Helferty*, M.M. ’23 (Early Music Voice)

Nicole Lam, B.S. ’25 (Applied Mathematics and Computer Science)

Molly McGuire*, M.M. ’23 (Early Music Voice)

Sarah Shapiro, M.M. ’24 (Choral Conducting)

Sandy Sharis*, M.M.A. ’24 (Early Music Voice)

Margaret Winchell, D.M.A. ’28 (Choral Conducting)

Tenor

Collin Edouard, Ph.D. ’27 (Ethnomusicology)

Sullivan Hart, M.Div. ’25 (Undecided)

Michaël Hudetz*, M.M.A. ’24 (Early Music Voice)

Michael Lukin, M.M.A. ’23 (Choral Conducting)

Matthew Newhouse*, M.M. ’23 (Early Music Voice)

Nathan Peace, M.Div. ’25 (Anglican Studies)

Alex Whittington, M.A. ’23 (Music History)

Bass 

Benjamin Beckman, B.A. ’24 (Music)

Lee Larson, M.B.A. ’24 (Management)

Mattias Lundberg, M.M. ’23 (Choral Conducting)

Henry Quillian, Ph.D. ’24 (Neuroscience)

Peter Schertz*, M.M. ’24 (Early Music Voice)

Jared Swope*, M.M. ’23 (Early Music Voice)

*Yale Voxtet

Yale Voxtet

Members of the Yale Voxtet are current students of Professor James Taylor at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Yale School of Music, where they are candidates for graduate degrees in voice. The select group of eight singers specializes in early music, oratorio, and chamber ensemble. In addition to performing a variety of chamber music programs each year, the group sings, tours, and records as part of Yale Schola Cantorum.