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Concert

Radiant Light

  • Sunday, December 14, 2025
  • 4:30 PM
  • Church of the Ascension and St. Agnes
  • Washington, DC

Program

Director’s note

Dear friends: 

Welcome to Radiant Light, our winter concert for Lux’s 11th season of programming. John Mullan, Anya Trudeau, and I developed the program for this concert together. We started with a handful of pieces and the broad theme of radiance, specifically as it relates to winter. One might reflect on the radiance of light reflecting off of snow, of a warm fire and hot chocolate after a frigid day, of joy on children’s faces playing in the cold, or of the sun’s rays peaking through an icy sky after the longest night of the year. Wintry radiance for us, in this case, was more than just the idea of radiant beams and lights, but a feeling of warmth, or even of energetic exuberance, that occasionally evades description.

The pieces we started with served as an example of the range of feelings radiance might bring up in the winter: The Aldeburgh Carol is a sonic embodiment of the crisp, anticipatory air just before snow, Mary’s Lullaby evokes the calming warmth of a crackling fire, The Crimson Sun, on top of the textual connection, volleys from quiet admiration to a burst of ebullient celebration, and Venite, Gaudete percolates with shining energy that grows to uncontainably joyous end. Anya, John, and I used these pieces as a blueprint to create the program we sing for you tonight. While text certainly played its role in the selection of The Shepherd’s Carol, O Heavens Open from Above, or So Breaks the Sun,we wanted aspects of the program not just to be about radiance, but to sound and even feel like radiance. We invite you to find your own interpretations of how radiance weaves its influence throughout the program as you listen. 

This is a particularly special season, as we’ve welcomed Han Wagner, a long-time singer, into the role of Director of Operations. We’re so deeply thankful for the work that Han’s predecessor, Emily Shallbetter, did in her five years in this position, and we’re already thrilled with how Han is building off of that work with his own strengths and style, and will continue to do so. We’re grateful to you, Han.

I’d also like to thank Thomas Rust, our Associate Artistic Director and fantastically talented baritone, for his work and support in preparing this program. For personal reasons, I have not been able to contribute as much in the run up to this concert cycle as I would have liked to to, and he has stepped in quite a lot behind the scenes and in rehearsals to help make this cycle happen, from running half of rehearsals to giving up a portion of pieces he should’ve led to improve the balance on the roster. 

Anya Trudeau and John-Paul Teti also did substantial work outside of their job descriptions to help get us ready for these concerts, as well as our entire Executive Committee, who contribute greatly to Lux as an organization. Without all of these folks, these concerts and much more simply couldn’t happen. It’s deeply heartening to tangibly see and feel the fruits of the community we’ve built through and around Lux.

That community certainly doesn’t stop with our executive committee: our singers, other musicians, and supporters like you contribute meaningfully to the community that we continue to build every day. The privilege of this position to create human connections is not lost on us, and we’re deeply grateful for the opportunity to do so at a time when connection seems particularly hard to come by for so many in our day-to-day lives. If you enjoy tonight’s concert and are able to do so, please make a donation to help us continue this work. Your donations ensure Lux’s future ability to present concerts and projects just like this, and much more. We have our sights set on expanding our educational programming, improving compensation for our incredible performers, and much more. We continue to need your support as we embark on these very exciting ideas.

Our ushers can accept cash or checks for donation after the concert. You can also donate by credit/debit card at the merchandise table after the concert or online here. Checks should be made out to Lux Choir, Inc. Lux is a 501(c)(3) organization. Donations are tax deductible. In addition, if you’re interested in becoming a financial partner by more fully funding our educational programs or sponsoring a concert, please speak to us after the concert or contact us here. We would love for you to be a part of our work!

Please don’t forget to say hello after the concert! Whether this is your twentieth Lux concert or your first (of many, I hope!), we really would love to meet you. We all so much enjoy getting to meet new friends and see old ones, too. I hope you enjoy the concert. We’re so glad you’re here.

—Robby Napoli, artistic director

Timeline

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William Byrd (1540-1623)

Laudibus in sanctis

About the work

Laudibus in sanctis is among William Byrd’s most energetic motets, which is apt for the text it sets. Byrd is famous for continuing his connection with and participation within the English Catholic community, even under persecution throughout the 16th century. Even while engaging in what was considered seditious behavior, Byrd’s talent and willingness to curry favor with the crown kept him mostly out of trouble. This is most evidenced by the famed publishing monopoly granted to Byrd and his contemporary Thomas Tallis by Queen Elizabeth I in 1575. Their first joint publication during this time was a collection dedicated to the queen: Cantiones quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur (“Songs which, because of their subject matter, are called sacred”). This somewhat strange title was very important, as there was no official liturgical market for these songs under Anglican rule, which had banned Latin-language sacred music. Instead, the official use for these songs was for friends to gather and sing in their homes—though, as Byrd was a practicing Catholic associated with recusant families, it’s highly likely that the music was also used liturgically in secret by Catholics.

Fifteen years after that first publication, Byrd published two books of sacred music, Cantiones Sacrae, “owing to the carelessness of scribes in making copies” of his own work. Laudibus in sanctis was written specifically for this second book, published in 1591. Byrd’s usage of Psalm 150 in this motet is particularly notable, as it paraphrases the psalm rather than directly setting the text as-is, perhaps as another careful choice intended to circumvent the charge of liturgical use. 

While Laudibus is definitionally a motet, it owes much of its compositional style to madrigals. This popular genre was known and loved for its use of text-painting, which is employed heavily throughout each of the three sections of this piece. As Andrew Griffiths puts it, Laudibus is“an object-lesson in word-painting that would shame any madrigal.” Listeners will hear first a call to praise the Lord from upper voices, soon splitting into electric polyphony which raises in pitch, foreshadowing in all aspects the echoes of the firmaments’ highest praises in the following line of text. In the secunda pars, we hear a militaristic dotted rhythm on the word martia (“warlike”) as the choir sings of warlike trumpets. While Byrd uses homophony often in the prima pars, he waits to combine all five voices in the secunda pars to depict the resonent organa/“resonant organ”. Finally, the tertia pars opens again with a homophonic incipit from the upper voices, immediately followed by a rousing meter change to depict the joyful dancing of nimble feet.

Text

Laudibus in sanctis Dominum celebrate supremum:
Firmamenta sonent inclita facta Dei.
Inclita facta Dei cantate, sacraque potentis
Voce potestatem saepe sonate manus.

Magnificum Domini cantet tuba martia nomen:
Pieria Domino concelebrate lira.
Laude Dei resonent resonantia tympana summi,
Alta sacri resonent organa laude Dei.

Hunc arguta canant tenui psalteria corda,
Hunc agili laudet laeta chorea pede.
Concava divinas effundant cymbala laudes,
Cymbala dulcisona laude repleta Dei.
Omne quod aethereis in mundo vescitur auris
Alleluia canat tempus in omne Deo. 
Adapted from Psalm 150

Translation

Praise the Lord most high in holy praises:
Let the firmament echo the glorious deeds of God.
Sing ye the glorious deeds of God, and with holy voice
Sound forth often the power of his mighty hand.

Let the warlike trumpet sing the great name of the Lord:
Celebrate the Lord with Pierian lyre.
Let resounding timbrels ring to the praise of the most-high God,
Resonant organs peal to the praise of the holy God.

Let melodious psalteries sing of him with fine string,
Let joyful dance praise him with nimble foot.
Let hollow cymbals pour forth divine praises,
Sweet-sounding cymbals filled with the praise of God.
Let everything in the world that feeds upon the air of heaven
Sing Alleluia to God for evermore. 

Judith Weir (b. 1954)

Drop down, ye heavens, from above

About the work

Judith Weir is a British composer and the first woman in British history to serve as Master of the King’s (or Queen’s) Music, a title roughly equivalent to “poet laureate” for musicians, serving from 2014-2024. Weir was born to Scottish musicians, and played the oboe in her childhood. She studied with John Tavener at the North London Collegiate School. She saw immediate success upon her graduation in 1976, receiving premieres, awards, and a Composer-in-Residence position all in that same year.

True to her teacher’s style, Weir’s music often draws on sources from medieval history, as we hear plainly in her Drop down, ye heavens, from above. Deeply informed by chant, this unmetered and speech-influenced work opens in organum: a single melody harmonized only by intervals of perfect octaves and fifths. When the text declares Jesus’s coming after the longing of the prophets, this thin 3-part texture explodes into resounding 8-part harmony to depict God’s voice before expertly fading back to the minimalistic sound from which the piece begins.

Text

Drop down ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people; my salvation shall not tarry.
I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions:
Fear not, for I will save thee;
For I am the Lord thy God, the holy one of Israel, thy redeemer.

Drop down ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.
From the Advent Prose

Yshani Perinpanayagam (b. 1983)

In Bethlehem Above

About the work

This new carol, with music and text by multi-genre musician and music director Yshani Perinpanayagam, describes the nativity scene in a simple, four-part texture. Although the text and score imply a verse-chorus form, the verses only vaguely borrow melodic content from one to the next. The first section depicts the famous star which shone above the stall where Jesus was born, piercing the night—just as the basses pierce through the texture high in their range and what feels like a beat early, briefly departing from the piece’s consistent homophony. Perinpanayagam then shifts perspective to the inside of the stall, where the basses quietly narrate the oxen whispering the chorus near the feeding babe: Gloria in excelsis Deo! The final stanza arrives in triumphant sound—fitting to herald the arrival of the king of kings, as the whole world and chorus of angels sing a final, rousing Gloria.

Text

In Bethlehem above, a star pierces the midnight sky to proclaim the child is born!
Gloria in excelsis Deo!

In a stall below, a babe fed by a mother loving and brave. The oxen whisper:
Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Shepherd, take knee with king. Rejoice!
Heaven and earth resound with his glory, the angels singing:
Gloria in excelsis Deo!
Yshani Perinpanayagam (b. 1983)

Bob Chilcott (b. 1955)

The Shepherd’s Carol

About the work

Bob Chilcott is known in the choral field as a prodigious composer/arranger, but he began his musical career as a singer. He was a standout boy chorister in the famed Choir of King’s College, where he sang through his university days. In 1985, he joined the King’s Singers, and sang tenor for them until 1997, when he transitioned full-time to composition and conducting. His rich and varied musical experiences have informed his writing, which, in his own words, “reflect [his] broad view of musical styles and genres.” 

The Shepherd’s Carol was published four years after his leaving the King’s Singers, and has since become a modern classic in Lessons & Carols services across the world. This sweetly intimate piece sets Clive Sansom’s text, which depicts the shepherds telling Mary of the chorus of angels that sent them on their journey to the manger. Chilcott paints the scene beautifully, gradually bringing the sopranos’ unison melody to a flowing chorus of “calm” to harmonize the tenors’ second verse. Sansom’s words are brought to a fitting climax as they recount the bright, beaming North Star and a voice from the sky declaiming the birth of God. Chilcott uses the full forces of the choir in homophony for the first and only time of the piece at exactly this moment.

Text

We stood on the hills, Lady,
Our day's work done,
Watching the frosted meadows
That winter had won.

The evening was calm, Lady,
The air so still.
Silence more lovely than music
Folded the hill.

There was a star, Lady,
Shone in the night.
Larger than Venus it was,
And bright, so bright.

Oh, a voice from the sky, Lady
It seemed to us then
Telling of God being born
In the world of men.

And so we have come, Lady,
Our day's work done,
Our love, our hopes, ourselves
We give to your son.
Clive Sansom (1910-1981)

Traditional English, arr. Reginald Jacques (1894-1969)

The Holly and The Ivy

About the work

The Holly and the Ivy is a traditional British folk carol that dates at least as far back as 1814, when H. Wadsworth published it in three broadsides in Birmingham, England. Holly had come to be regarded as a form of Christian symbolism much before then due to its bright colors even through winter. Though the words were sung to many folk melodies during its early years, the melody we’ve come to associate with the text was first published by Cecil Sharp in 1911 after hearing a woman sing the song in a small town between Birmingham and Oxford. Sharp notes that The Holly and the Ivy is also related to an older carol which he called “The Contest of the Ivy and the Holly.”

Reginald Jacques, who wrote this arrangement of the carol, was an English choral and orchestral conductor. While Jacques left behind numerous choral arrangements, he is known mostly for his conducting. A number of his arrangements, though, are preserved in the beloved Carols for Choirs books, first edited and arranged by Jacques and David Willcocks (former director of the Choir of King’s College), and now published in John Rutter’s 100 Carols for Choirs. Jacques’s strophic arrangement stays true to the folk melody that became most prevalent with the text. Each verse is harmonized differently to bring out the imagery of the text, including a dissonant D-natural in the key of A-flat major for the altos denoting the prickle borne by the holly in verse four.

Text

1. The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown,
Of all the trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown.

Refrain:
The rising of the sun,
And the running of the deer,
The playing of the merry organ,
Sweet singing in the choir.

2. The holly bears a blossom
As white as the lily flower;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To be our sweet savior. (Refrain)

3. The holy bears a berry
As red as any blood;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
For to do us sinners good. (Refrain)

4. The holly bears a prickle
As sharp as any thorn,
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
On Christmas day in the morn. (Refrain)

5. The holly bears a bark
As bitter as any gall;
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
for to redeem us all. (Refrain.)

6 (1 repeated). The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown,
Of all the trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown. (Refrain)
Traditional English

Alexander Campkin (b. 1984)

The Crimson Sun

About the work

Alexander Campkin is an accomplished composer, boasting over one-hundred commissions from The Royal Opera House, The Tallis Scholars, and more. He was a talented violist in his youth, but when he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 17, his focus turned to writing music, rather than playing: “MS changed my life. It stopped me playing the viola. But it certainly didn’t stop me composing,” Campkin says.

The Crimson Sun was commissioned for The Choir of Jesus College Cambridge, and simply sets a 19th-century strophic text by Rev. George P. Grantham. (This text is sometimes sung as a carol to the same tune as “Angels We Have Heard on High”.) Campkin’s verses gently lilt as they paint the picture of the shepherds bending the knee as they greet Jesus in the manger. The last line of each verse grows in excitement, finally bursting out into the chorus of “Gloria in excelsis Deo!”, shifting into a new meter which flows more energetically forward with sopranos volleying glorias back-and-forth before gradually falling both in pitch and tempo to its final resolution.

Text

When the crimson sun had set
Low behind the wintry sea,
On the bright
And cold midnight
Burst a sound of heavenly glee:
Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Where the manger crib is laid,
In the city fair and free,
Hand in hand,
This shepherds band
Worship Christ on bended knee.
Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Join with us in welcome song,
Ye who in Christ's Home abide,
Sing the Love
Of God above,
Shown at happy Christmas-tide.
Gloria in excelsis Deo!
George P. Grantham (1833-1933)

Franz X. Gruber (1787-1863), Fredrik Sixten (b. 1962)

Mary’s Lullaby (Silent Night)

Performance details

Melodia Mae Rinaldi, soprano soloist.

About the work

Mary’s Lullaby is a stunning reinvention by Fredrik Sixten of the beloved Christmas carol Silent Night. Sixten sets the piece for solo soprano and choir. The choral parts would be sufficient themselves as a remarkable new arrangement, in which Sixten skillfully employs lush extended harmonies without dividing the choir. Rather than stopping with the reharmonization, however, Sixten adds a beautiful soprano solo  soaring above the choir, singing words by the 20th-century Swedish poet, Bo Setterlind. Sixten writes:

Back in 2006 I came across a sweet and naive little poem by one of Sweden’s most known and read poets, Bo Setterlind. It was included in a small nativity play written for the church in the town, Strängnäs, where he lived. It was Mary singing for her little newborn, almost improvising in the moment I felt. I heard the Angels singing “Silent night” in the background and had that as my initial idea. As you can hear she also joins the Angels and briefly sings parts of that hymn as well.

Text

Note: This piece contains two different sets of lyrics being sung at the same time. These are indicated separately by indicating which lyrics are being sung by the soprano soloist and which by the choir.

Verse 1
Soprano:
Sleep, my star,
sleep, my child,
sleep, my little flower,
sleep, little bird above in the sky.
All is calm, the sky is alight.
Sleep, my star, hush, my child,
sleep my star-bird-flower.

Choir:
Silent night, holy night,
all is calm, all is bright.
Round yon Virgin Mother and Child,
holy infant so tender and mild,
sleep in heavenly peace.

Verse 2 (choir only):
Silent night, holy night!
Shepherds quake at the sight
Glories stream from heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing “Alleluia!”
Christ, the Savior is born.

Verse 3:
Soprano
Silent night, holy night,
Son of God, love's pure light...
All is calm, the sky is alight.
Sleep, my star,
hush, my child,
sleep, my star-bird-flower.

Choir
Sleep, my star,
sleep, my child...
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth.
“Sleep, my star” by Bo Setterlind, trans. Fredrik Gildea; “Silent Night” by Joseph Mohr, trans. John Freeman Young

Intermission 15m

Ended

Adrian Peacock (b. 1962)

Venite, Gaudete!

About the work

Adrian Peacock is primarily known today as a top-tier producer of choral albums, particularly in England and the United States, though as a singer, he is also responsible for many a low note in Tenebrae, the Tallis Scholars, the BBC Singers, the Gabrieli Consort, and more. Peacock’s musical training began at Lichfield Cathedral as a chorister, winning a scholarship to pursue studies in piano, organ, and bassoon. He later studied voice and conducting before his freelance chorister work in England. It was during this time that he became curious about the producer’s role in the recording process, and slowly shifted his focus towards that work.

Venite, Gaudete! is an enthralling setting of an anonymous text which seems to be a smattering of vignettes from Advent and Christmas texts. The nexus of the piece lies in the rhythmic interplay between ostinati which do not easily fit into a typically regular meter accompanying an unfolding harmonic gesture in the foreground. We first hear this as the treble voices slowly build up their harmonies in their rhythmic ostinato, only to have the tenors and basses enter in what feels like a different rhythmic meter. The two swap roles in the next set of text before passing a winding melody to overlap across the choir. The ending opens the texture further into double-choir: While choir one passes winding ‘alleluias’ amongst each other, choir two brings back the original ostinato from the beginning of the piece, growing to an invigorating and powerful ending. 

Text

Veni, veni, veni Emmanuel.
O, venite adoremus, puer natus est nobis.
Alleluia.

Hodie Christus natus est.
Laetantur archangeli.

Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus.
Venite adoremus, gaudete! Alleluia!
Anonymous

Translation

O come, o come, o come Emmanuel.
O come let us adore him, a child is born to us.
Alleluia.

Today Christ is born.
Today the angels rejoice.

Rejoice, rejoice, Christ is born!
O come let us adore him, rejoice! Alleluia!

Traditional German, arr. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

In Dulci Jubilo

About the work

In Dulci Jubilo is a traditional, well-known Christmas carol dating all the way back to the Middle Ages. Historians believe the text was written around 1328 by a German mystic, whose biography notes that he heard angels sing these words while joining him in a dance of worship. The original text is macaronic, that is, it is a text which alternates between languages (in this case, German and Latin). The tune first appears in a manuscript in Leipzig which dates back to around 1400, though it is theorized that the melody existed in Europe long before then. The tune appears in many places throughout Europe as a monody (one line without harmony) and as a source for musical parody (original music which quotes a melody from another source).

While many are familiar with Robert Pearsall’s 1837 harmonization of the tune and text, Johann Sebastian Bach’s chorale prelude based on the tune is often heard as an organ postlude for Christmas services. This arrangement sets the text of the carol with Bach’s organ harmonization for a cappella choir. Listeners will hear some patented Bach harmonic ploys, including tonicization (temporary shifts in key center), constant motion which propels the music forward, and usage of melismas and passing tones to connect intervals that might have been leaps in the original melody.

Text

1. In dulci jubilo, [= In sweet rejoicing]
Now sing with hearts aglow
Our delight and pleasure
Lies in presepio [= in a manger].
Like sunshine is our treasure
Matris in gremio [= in his mother’s lap]:
Alpha es et O, alpha es et o! [= He is Alpha and Omega.]

2. O Jesu parvule [= O little Jesus],
For thee I long alway[s]:
Comfort my heart's blindness,
O puer optime [= O excellent boy],
With all thy loving-kindness:
O princeps glorie [= O prince of glory],
Trahe me post te, trahe me post te. [= Draw me after you.]

3. O Patris charitas, [= O love of the Father]
O nati lenitas: [= O gentleness of the newborn]
Deeply were we stained,
per nostra crimina: [= through our sins]
But thou for us hast gained coelorum gaudia [= the joys of heaven].
O that we were there! O that we were there!

4. Ubi sunt gaudia [= Where are our joys]
in any place but there?
There are angels singing
Nova cantica [= new songs]
And there the bells are ringing in regis curia [= in the king’s court]:
O that we were there! O that we were there!

Cecilia McDowall (b. 1951)

Regina Caeli

About the work

Attendees of prior Lux concerts will likely recognize contemporary composer Cecilia McDowall’s name, as her music has been a mainstay in our repertoire for some years. McDowall is a leading composer of choral music from the UK with many awards and commissions to her name. Among her accolades are the 2014 British Composer Award and the 2020 Ivor Novello Award. 

In this program, we feature the third of her Three Latin Motets, written in 2004. This piece sets a traditional 12th-century Marian text, which features a constant refrain of ‘alleluia’ before and after each line. McDowall’s setting draws particular attention to the returning alleluias by halving the tempo and setting them with stark homophony and thick, brightly dissonant chords. This contrasts them from the remaining Latin texts, which are set at double the speed to jaunty bouts of percolating energy passed back-and-forth from voice part to voice part.

Text

Alleluia!
Regina caeli laetare, alleluia!
Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia!
Resurrexit sicut dixit, alleluia!
Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia!
Eastertide hymn

Translation

Alleluia!
Queen of Heaven, rejoice, alleluia!
For he whom you merited to carry—alleluia!—
he has arisen, as he said, alleluia!
Pray for us to God, alleluia!

David Hurd (b. 1950)

O Heavens, Open from Above

About the work

David Hurd was born in Brooklyn, New York, and spent his childhood years as a boy soprano at St. Gabriel’s Church on Long Island. He later studied at Oberlin College and the University of North Carolina, and has served as a professor of church music at General Theological Seminary in New York. Hurd is regarded as one of the foremost church musicians and concert organists in the country. He has contributed to over 75 hymn tunes and arrangements found in hymn books across the United States.

O Heavens, Open from Above sets a text from Sister Genevieve Glen, a nun of the Abbey of St. Walburga in northern Colorado. Hurd’s setting begins in unison octaves, but immediately leaps into shocking dissonances which hail the opening of the piece. The second line of the poem sees the choir passing the same descending melody across the choir from altos to sopranos to tenors, and finally basses. The singers then arise and grow from their descent, resolving into a fresh, new key on the word “new”. Later, a new melodic fragment is passed across the choir at “Let sprout the silent seed…” before the piece ends with a musical recap of the beginning, ending with a hopeful, even celebratory, C major chord.

Text

O heavens, open from above
Let fall the silent dew
Upon our parched and desert hearts: 
Make new the earth, make new.
O earth, break open clotted depth, 
Let sprout the silent seed
From every old and barren soul: 
Make speed, O God, make speed.
O God, send down your justice soon 
Raise up your peace; ’tis late.
Let faithfulness and love embrace: 
We wait, O Lord, we wait!
Genevieve Glen, OSB

Ben Parry (b. 1965)

The Aldeburgh Carol

About the work

Composer Ben Parry has a multi-faceted career as a conductor, composer, arranger, singer, and producer. A regular collaborator with poet Garth Bardsley, the duo have completed projects for BBC Proms, King’s College Choir, and are currently developing a new theater piece for baritone and small ensemble. Ben’s music might be most visible to Lux audiences through his commission from the Cathedral Choral Society or his musical feature in the first episode of Fox Network’s Glee. Aside from his compositional work, Parry has served as Principal Conductor of the National Youth Choir, a member of the Swingle Singers, and has conducted on soundtracks of The Hobbit, Avengers, and Harry Potter.

The Aldeburgh Carol was written for The Aldeburgh Music Festival (founded by Benjamin Britten, his partner Peter Pears, and opera director Eric Crozier) in celebration of Britten’s centenary in 2013. (Aldeburgh itself is the town where Britten lived the last 20 years of his life.) Parry’s writing makes constant references to Britten and his music. The piece is scored for solo quartet and mixed choir, a nod to Britten’s famous Hymn to the Virgin (which he wrote at the ripe age of sixteen). On top of that, Parry uses a repeated “Blessed, Blessed” theme in the solo quartet sung on a B-flat: two B’s for Britten’s initials. 

Text

Blessed, blessed is the child.

No more than dust,
The tiny seed lies dormant in her hand.
Its precious secret, safely clasped within,
Shall be revealed when nurtured by the land.

Sheltered and nourished,
No raging storm can then, its course, impede
And from the earth a matchless gift springs forth;
A lovely flower where once there was a seed.

With love, each child, we must empower,
That he may bloom as does the flower.
Garth Bardsley

Traditional French, arr. Reginald Jacques (1894-1969)

Angels, from the Realms of Glory

About the work

Angels from the realms of glory is an adaptation of the old French hymn Les anges dans nos campagnes. It was first printed in a Sheffield newspaper on Christmas Eve 1816, written by Scottish poet James Montgomery. Like most classic hymn texts, its first 100 years saw it set to more than fifty different tunes, including a few famous hymn tunes that have survived to this day. The British public eventually settled, though, on the same tune sung to the original French. That tune came to be called “Iris” in hymnbooks in reference to the name of the newspaper in which the English was first printed. A slight variation of the tune is used for the confusingly-related text, Angels We Have Heard on High. 

Montgomery’s text, while inspired by the French original, is not intended as any sort of translation. This arrangement, the second we are performing this evening which is by Reginald Jacques and featured in 100 Carols for Choirs, sets the verses for three high voices, with a slightly altered harmonization of the chorus.

Text

1. Angels, from the realms of glory
Wing your flight o’er all the earth;
Ye who sang creation’s story
Now proclaim Messiah’s birth:
Gloria in excelsis Deo! [= Glory to God in the highest.]

2. Shepherds from the field abiding,
Watching o’er your flocks by night,
God with man is now residing,
Yonder shines the infant light:
Gloria in excelsis Deo! [= Glory to God in the highest.]

3. Sages, leave your contemplations;
Brighter visions beam afar;
Seek the great desire of nations;
Ye have seen his natal star.
Gloria in excelsis Deo! [= Glory to God in the highest.]
James Montgomery (1771-1854)

Shavon Lloyd (b. 1997)

So Breaks The Sun

About the work

So Breaks the Sun was the winning submission for a composition contest put on by The 18th Street Singers, a local group here in DC. Composer Shavon Lloyd began writing at 16, immediately winning his first composition contest. He is an accomplished musician, having studied composition and music education at The Crane School of Music before studying vocal performance at the Juilliard School. Lloyd has won many awards both for his choral works and in vocal performance. From the composer:

In [Ben Jonson’s] text, he describes the long-awaited transition from winter to spring. He makes a point to share the good things that come with spring, while also reflecting on the characteristics of winter. To me, this text goes further than just the change in season. I believe it is metaphorical for leaving a cold place in your life to a place of warmth, light, and happiness.

I wrote my own text to give the piece more of a transition from cold to warmth and light. My text reads, “The night is dark and cold, the Earth is fettered with snow, and the chill of the air confines me to sorrow.” Again, this is in congruence with the idea of the metaphorical traits of winter that Jonson portrays. From this, I was able to capture a sense of jubilation when arriving at the section of the piece where the choir finally sings, “So breaks the sun…”


In this piece, I utilize a lot of close harmonies and chords that represent all of the emotions this poem has to offer. To illustrate a sense of jubilation and relief, I used an exciting ostinato that occurs throughout the piece on the text, “so breaks the sun.” I also made sure to capture mood changes with striking harmonic and textural shifts in the music.

So Breaks the Sun is unlike any piece I’ve written. I spent a lot of time focusing on the themes and emotions that Jonson communicated, used his beautiful language and applied my own musical syntax to create this composition. This is one of the very few times where I completely surrendered myself to the text.

Text

The night is dark and cold,
The earth is fettered with snow,
And the chill of the air confines me to sorrow.

So breaks the sun earth’s rugged chains
Wherein rude winter bounds her veins
So grows both stream and source of price
that lately fettered were with ice.

So naked trees get cripsed heads,
And colored coats the roughest meads,
And all get vigor, youth, and sprite
That are but looked on by his light.

(So breaks the sun.)
Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

Performers

Soprano

  • Melodia Mae Rinaldi
  • Katie Surine
  • Abigail Winston

Alto

  • Kimberly Parr
  • Dina Spyropoulos
  • Anya Trudeau

Tenor

  • John Mullan
  • Robby Napoli
  • John-Paul Teti

Bass

  • David Breen
  • Ciaran Cain
  • Thomas Rust

Donors

Donor (up to $120)

  • Michael Barham
  • Amanda J. DeVries
  • Nathan Rich
  • William Surine
  • Steven Williams

Patron ($120+)

  • The Ison Family
  • Mark Ohnmacht
  • Peter Sayers
  • Lenka Shallbetter

Benefactor ($240+)

  • Frank & Kathy Napoli

Singer Sponsor ($1020+)

  • Robby Napoli
  • John-Paul & Elizabeth Teti