Classical Music of Canada & Brazil April 25, 2009

José Maurício Nunes Garcia Requiem
(Afro-Brazilian, 1767-1830)
“The Brazilian Mozart”

Stephen Chatman
Two Rossetti Songs
Gloria

Healey Willan
O Sing Unto The Lord A New Song
Rise Up, My Love

Imant Raminsh
Ave Verum Corpus

Ruth Watson Henderson
Sing All Ye Joyful

Srul Irving Glick
What I Have Learned Is This
The Hour Has Come

Music Director Robert Gurney conducts the San Francisco Lyric Chorus in an exciting concert of classical choral music from Canada and Brazil. Organist Robert Train Adams accompanies the concert. Our featured work is the expressive Requiem by Afro-Brazilian composer José Maurício Nunes Garcia, 1767-1830. Grandson of slaves, he is known as the Brazilian Mozart.

We also present a variety of modern and contemporary choral music from Canada. Healey Willan’s Rise Up, My Love and O Sing Unto The Lord are wonderful anthems by the father of Canadian choral music. University of British Columbia professor Stephen Chatman's Two Rossetti Songs are lyrical settings of poems by Dante and Christina Rossetti. His Gloria is an energetic, rhythmic contrast. Latvian immigrant Imant Raminsh's Ave Verum Corpus is an exquisite work in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Ruth Watson Henderson's Sing All Ye Joyful is a delightful setting of text from Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Srul Irving Glick was one of Canada’s most performed and recorded composers. His What I Have Learned Is This is a movement from his memorial to Leonard Bernstein. The Hour Has Come is the last movement of a six-part work with that title, expressing the beauty of the earth and exclaiming dramatic warning that we must come together in harmony before we and the earth perish.

Official Website: http://sflc.org/