Our second spring pocket concert will explore “Elemental Echoes”
Guest Conductor Dr. Daniel Hall will direct
Continuing our 25th Anniversary Season, we are very pleased to announce that our second spring concert of 2024 will be prepared and conducted by Dr. Daniel Hall. Dr. Hall is Director of Choirs at Wyoming Seminary, as well as a composer and arranger published by Walton Music and Santa Barbara Music Publishing, among others.
Click here to read about Dr. Hall’s training and work. https://choralsociety.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Dan-Hall-bio.pdf
Dr. Hall has provided the following thoughts on his selected program.
Don’t dismiss the elements. Water soothes and heals. Air refreshes and revives. Earth grounds and holds. Fire is a burning reminder of our own will and creative power. Swallow their spells. There’s a certain sweet comfort in knowing that you belong to them all.
-Victoria Erickson
I have always been intrigued by the possibility of creating a choral program based on the natural elements of fire, water, air, and earth. I am excited to see this concept come to fruition with the Choral Society of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Identifying music to fit this universal concept was simple enough, but making the final selections proved tricky at times. I began with a rather lengthy list, gradually trimming it down, and ultimately settling on the program you see today:
Elemental Echoes: Music of Fire, Water, Air, and Earth
Often, the elements seem to abide in serenely balanced harmony, but at other times, they clash violently. Regardless of the consonance and dissonance apparent in the elemental world, a general sense of cyclical order often seems to emerge from the drama. Examples of this are seen in oceanic tides, planetary orbits, seasons, and the earth-building activity of volcanos. The prevalence of cyclical structure that I have continually observed in nature has led me to the creation and ordering of our current choral program.
Chiasmus is a literary technique whereby the structure of one phrase is inverted in the following phrase, thus allowing fundamental ideas from the original phrase to reemerge in the second phrase in inverted order. For example: “Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.” Chiasmus, when utilized effectively, generates a formal and structural stability based on symmetry. Here is another: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” And a fun one to finish up: “Never let a fool kiss you or a kiss fool you.”
The chiastic ordering of elements in our choral program can be seen below in the elements of earth, water, fire, and air. I am so excited to see what we uncover and learn as we explore the drama of the elements through singing!
EARTH: At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners, Williametta Spencer
WATER: Super flumina Babylonis (By the Waters of Babylon), Orlando di Lasso
FIRE: Fire! Fire! Thomas Morley
AIR: Chindia, Alexandru Pasçanu
AIR: Across the Vast Eternal Sky, Ola Gjeilo
FIRE: Lament for Pasiphae, Morten Lauridsen
WATER: Shall We Gather at the River, arr. Daniel J. Hall
ALL ELEMENTS: Let the River Run, Craig Hella Johnson
Rehearsals begin on Monday evening, March 11th, 6:30-9:00 pm at Langcliffe Presbyterian Church in Avoca, halfway between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre and only minutes off I-81. No audition is required to participate, and singers will only pay modest tuition and purchase and retain their own scores.
Look to the tabs above to learn more about us, hear us sing, see the rehearsal/performance schedule, meet our professional section singers, accompanist, and conductor, and read about our Artistic Director search.
Thanks for visiting The Choral Society of Northeast Pennsylvania!
Alan Baker, artistic director