The choir performs 4 reveals starting Thursday, January 19, in Naples, then heads again to South Florida, the place three church buildings in Coral Gables, Miami Beach, and Fort Lauderdale would be the settings for the music. On Friday, January 20, the group performs at 8 p.m. at Church of the Little Flower in Coral Gables; then on Saturday, January 21, at 7:30 p.m., it is All Saints Episcopal Church in Fort Lauderdale. The ultimate live performance is a matinee on Sunday, January 22, at 4 p.m. at All Souls Episcopal Church in Miami Beach.
Founded in 2002 by present inventive director Patrick Dupre Quigley, the ensemble boasts a roster of prime performers, academics, and students, in addition to 16 albums up to now and collaborations with, amongst others, the Cleveland Orchestra, New World Symphony, and pop star Shakira. The choir has a world repute for dynamic, cutting-edge, and traditionally knowledgeable programming that encompasses secular and sacred literature.
It was a gathering at a choral convention that Ferdinand, now director of choral actions on the University of Maryland and beforehand at Oakwood University in Hunstville, Alabama, and Quigley have been attending that led to the invitation for Ferdinand to visitor conduct Seraphic Fire.
“I’ve identified Patrick over the previous couple of years, and we met in particular person in 2019 American Choral Directors Association. Many of us attend the identical conferences, and many people have mutual pals,” Ferdinand says.
The program is conceived round American composer and conductor Aaron Copland’s “Old American Songs” — two music units Copland revealed in 1950 and 1952 for voice and piano. The collections embody well-known favorites just like the spirituals “At the River” and “Simple Gifts.”
“We begin in America, and we finish in America,” Ferdinand explains about this system. “I believed it could be fairly cool to start with Copland doing this Americana music and to do music that was born and birthed right here.”
Seraphic Fire inventive director Patrick Quigley (left) and affiliate conductor James Bass
Photo by Mary Beth Koeth
An authentic program, which was to function all Copland choral music, wanted to be canceled by Seraphic Fire through the pandemic.
“It was a program that various our patrons have been very unhappy to have missed, so we appeared for a solution to embody the ‘Old American Songs’ on a future program,” says Quigley. “When we solidified Jason’s program, we requested him to make use of ‘Old American Songs’ as the premise for his program, which he has performed expertly.”
However, for the January program, Ferdinand went additional and added not often heard items like Mulholland’s “Keramos” and works by African-American composers like Hall Johnson’s “I Cannot Stay Here By Myself,” Moses Hogan’s “My Soul’s Been Anchored within the Lord,” and Chicago-born King’s enchanting and ethereal “Psalm 57.”
Ferdinand included works that mirror America’s historical past of slavery and racism since protecting this historical past alive permits it to encourage new composers, he says.
“The indisputable fact that it was born proper right here means this has the footprint and all of the reverberations that made this music,” explains Ferdinand. “The second in time was not a reasonably one, however typically essentially the most noble items come from what will not be essentially the most very best circumstances.”
Ferdinand additionally included on this system “Hold Fast to Dreams” by 35-year-old, up-and-coming African-American conductor and composer Joel Thompson.
“Young composers of all ethnicities ought to have the inspiration to maintain creating,” says Ferdinand.
Thompson’s 2015 choral work, “Seven Last Words of the Unarmed,” gained the 2018 American Prize for Choral Composition with a libretto constructed across the seven final phrases spoken by unarmed Black males.
“[Thompson] provides a whole lot of thought to what he is composing and the texts he is utilizing,” says Ferdinand. “None of it’s writing for writing’s sake — he’s actually making an attempt to mirror what’s taking place in society.”
Though the January efficiency presents, many not often heard spirituals, as an African-American conductor and composer Ferdinand is cautious when programming religious music.
“I do not program spirituals typically in order to not be pigeonholed,” he says. “I attempt to take part in all of the genres of choral music I can. I spend a whole lot of time doing Brahms and Beethoven.”
In 2019, Ferdinand performed the Oakwood Aeolians in a program for the American Choral Directors Association convention, the place he says he deliberately long-established a program and not using a live performance religious.
“We programmed Bach, [Pietro] Ferrario, and extra classical issues,” Ferdinand explains. “We is perhaps Black, however we will do all the opposite varieties of music. It is necessary for the youthful folks to see us doing all types of music.”
The 2019 efficiency proved the catalyst behind the present program. Quigley and Seraphic Fire simply occurred to be headlining that very same ACDA convention.
“[Jason] was there main the Oakwood University Aeolians as a part of the convention in a program that included J.S. Bach’s ‘Singet dem Herrn.’ They blew everybody on the convention away with their efficiency,” says Quigley. “One of our members, Reginald Mobley, is an Oakwood alum and launched me. From then on, we appeared for a solution to get Jason to Miami to collaborate with Seraphic Fire, and the remaining is historical past.”
– Sean Erwin, ArtburstMiami.com
Seraphic Fire Presents “Old|New.” With visitor conductor Jason Max Ferdinand. 8 p.m., Friday, January 20, at Church of the Little Flower, 2711 Indian Mound Trl., Coral Gables; 7:30 p.m., Saturday, January 21, at All Saints Episcopal Church, 333 Tarpon Dr., Fort Lauderdale; and 4 p.m., Sunday, January 22, at All Souls Episcopal Church, 4025 Pine Tree Dr., Miami Beach; 305-285-9060; seraphicfire.org. Tickets value $50.