BRATTLEBORO — The Brattleboro Concert Choir begins rehearsing for its upcoming season in September with a program celebrating the kinship of creation.
Under direction of Susan Dedell, the choir is presenting three very different pieces of choral music: Benjamin Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb, Richard Blackford's Mirror of Perfection, and Paul Winter's Missa Gaia .
Many consider Britten's cantata to contain his finest choral writing. Certainly the challenges are varied and rewarding, as Britten sets the vivid text of the supposedly mad Christopher Smart (1722-1771) with extraordinary vision and imagination.
According to Dedell, it's easy to see why Britten was so attracted to this poem: “It has great color, drama, bizarre imagery, and the central issue of the individual against the crowd. It ultimately concludes that all beings, each in their own way, form the perfect worship of their creator simply by being their most natural selves.”
Blackford's Mirror of Perfection took London audiences by storm at its première seven years ago, when it was described as “a powerful cantata of lavish beauty, clothed in a radiance of strings, harp, horns, and percussion.”
Setting the little known poetry of St. Francis of Assisi, the music fully captures the passion and compassion of the famous saint who was known as a devotee of love.
The season concludes in the spring with Winter's Missa Gaia, a work Dedell says “started a whole new way of thinking about what a choral Mass could look like. It's an exhilarating fusion of sound and drama.”