Sunday, November 15, 2026

5:00 pm

Immanuel Baptist Church

On this program, we continue to celebrate America at 250 by highlighting two great 20th-century American composers, Leonard Bernstein and Randall Thompson. This concert will be a bit different from others, as we will be singing two extended chamber works rather than a series of individual pieces.

The first half of the concert will feature Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, a commissioned work premiered in New York City in 1965. Bernstein includes Psalms 108 and 100 in the first movement to create a joyful, energetic opening. The second movement sets two contrasting psalms: Psalm 23 with its gentle “the Lord is my Shepherd” against the rebellious Psalm 2, “Why do the nations rage?” The final movement includes Psalm 131 and Psalm 133, pleading for peace and unity. Accompanied by an instrumental ensemble of harp, organ, and percussion, the work is filled with dancing rhythms, haunting melodies, and “crunchy” harmony. Chichester Psalms is truly a masterpiece and one of the most exciting works I have had the privilege to conduct and perform.

The second half of our concert is a complete contrast to the dramatic music of the first. Randall Thompson’s Frostiana: Seven Country Songs is an American classic, a setting of seven of Robert Frost’s poems. The work was composed and premiered in 1959, with Robert Frost in attendance. In fact, as Frost was so pleased with Thompson’s musical settings, he prohibited his poetry from being set to music by anyone else. It is only in recent years when many of his poems have entered the public domain that they are being set to music by other composers. Accompanied by a small chamber ensemble, Frostiana includes three movements for the entire group, two for the treble voices, and two for the tenor/bass voices. Thompson takes Frost’s pastoral words and adds exactly the right musical settings to illuminate the poet’s words. Both the poetry and the music

are exceptional.