Shakespeare
in Song
in Song
Choral music from 1600 to today based on the wit, beauty, humor, and insight of Shakespearean texts
October 11 – 13, 2019
True Concord choir, soloists and chamber players
Friday, October 11, 2019, 7:00 PM
St. Francis in the Valley Episcopal Church, Green Valley
Saturday, October 12, 2019, 7:30 PM
Catalina Foothills High School
Sunday, October 13, 2019, 3:00 PM
Grace St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
“The True Concord of Well-Tuned Sounds”
~ Shakespeare, Sonnet No. 8
Step into the world of arguably the greatest genius of the English language. Music is a language, and language can be music, so it is only fitting that William Shakespeare uses and refers to well over one hundred songs in his works.
The cornerstone of the concert is English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music featuring 16 vocal soloists. Heartfelt melodies swell and ebb like a gentle breeze of sound with text from William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. It is said that Sergei Rachmaninoff, in attendance at the premiere of the Serenade, was reduced to tears by its beauty.
A great poet is the most precious jewel of a nation.
Ludwig van Beethoven
This concert premieres the third annual Stephen Paulus Emerging Composers Competition winner, with text from Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. 8, the inspiration for True Concord’s name.
In its first two years this competition has received more than 70 entries from across the country and has resulted in the world premieres of two works.
Don’t miss the birth of this next work of art!
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils….
…Let no such man be trusted.
Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice | Act 5, Scene 1
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice | Act 5, Scene 1
