On Sat. Feb. 17 at 7:30 p.m. in Woolsey Hall, David Hill will conduct Yale Schola Cantorum in a performance of Hymnus Paradisi by Herbert Howells, Jesu meine Freude by Danish Baroque period composer Dieterich Buxtehude, and To the Hands by GRAMMY and Pulitzer Prize winning Yale School of Music graduate, Caroline Shaw M.M. ’07. The concert is free and open to the public. Livestream is available.
The title of the concert, Holy is the True Light, is the name of the sixth movement of Hymnus Paradisi by English composer Herbert Howells, the primary composition in the concert. The choral work for mixed chorus, soprano and tenor soloists, and orchestra was inspired in part by the death of the composer’s son Michael. When writing about it, Howells recalled that such a loss, “essentially profound and, in its very nature, beyond argument, might naturally impel a composer, after a time, to seek release and consolation in language and terms most personal to him. Music may have the power beyond any other medium to offer that relief and comfort. It did so in my case.”
The event is free and open to the public and will also be available via livestream.
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 Yale Institute of Sacred Music and conducted by David Hill. Masaaki Suzuki is the ensemble’s principal guest conductor.
