PUTNEY — Every year, rather than take the day off, The Putney School honors the work and memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with an observance of the national holiday that's full of community events, workshops, and presentations for students.
The culmination of this year's events is a choral-orchestral concert presented by the Music Department on Monday, Jan. 19 at 2 p.m.
The concert is made possible by a weekend-long artistic residency with the Germantown Concert Chorus, a symphonic choir from Philadelphia. The performance is in Calder Hall in The Putney School's Michael S. Currier Center.
All are welcome, and at no charge.
The repertoire celebrates the African-American historical narrative - from strife and tragedy to righteous struggle to hope for the future - through the lens of music by African-American composers. Included are spirituals, anthems, and art songs.
The centerpiece of the concert is the affecting “And They Lynched Him On A Tree,” composed in 1941 by William Grant Still to the poetry of Katherine Garrison Chapin. The piece - scored for white chorus, negro chorus, contralto soloist, narrator, and full orchestra - decries the horror of lynchings in the South by evoking the violence involved and expressing the immense grief and pain born from hatred unchecked.
The Germantown Concert Chorus was founded in 2011 by Cailin Marcel Manson, who is in the second year of his tenure as director of music at The Putney School.
In just four seasons, the Germantown Concert Chorus has become one of the most respected community-based performing ensembles in the Greater Philadelphia area, performing with major professional ensembles at the premier classical concert venues in Philadelphia, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, and the Mann Center, as well as its own two-week successful choral festival, which is held every July.
Most notably, the choir participated in the 2012 premiere of Hannibal Lokumbe's “Can You Hear God Crying?” The Germantown Concert Chorus is also one of the few predominantly African-American community-based choruses in the nation whose repertoire and mission focus specifically on the performance of classical music.
For Monday's performance, The Germantown Concert Chorus joins forces with The Putney School Madrigals, the Putney Community Orchestra, and members of the Bennington County Choral Society. Each of these ensembles is directed by Manson throughout the year, and he will conduct the concert.