Description:

 Andrew Megill, conductor

Join the singers of BCE as they explore the choral works of Samuel Barber, who has been praised as America’s most profound composer of vocal music. The program will include his Reincarnations, three settings of poetry by James Stephens based on earlier poems by Anthony Raftery—a blind Irish bard who spent much of his life wandering across Ireland, taking shelter wherever it was offered in return for the gift of his words. These three miniature masterpieces explore, in turn, the ecstasy of infatuation, the unspeakable grief of human loss, and the deep joy of a love which has survived into maturity. Other works by Barber will include “To be sung on the water,” “Sure on this shining night,” and “Agnus Dei,” as well as solo songs and a work by Gian Carlo Menotti, Barber’s lifelong companion.