illumine

Sunday, October 3, 2004 at 7 pm

Share the sacred spaces of three seekers of the light. The season opens with our debut of Disney Hall’s superstar organ. Three distinguished organists — a different one for each piece — put the magnificent organ through its paces. The Chorale marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Antonin Dvorák with the great Czech composer’s massive and sublimely beautiful Mass in D major. The man who traveled in America and wrote the New World Symphony never strayed far from his Bohemian peasant roots or simple piety.

Fast-forward to two of today’s visionary composers. Commissioned to write the Disney organ premiere for the LA Philharmonic, James MacMillan (b. 1959) is the preeminent Scottish composer of his generation. “…a composer so confident of his own musical language that he makes it instantly communicative to his listeners,” says The Guardian. Expect the unexpected in Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, his two canticles from St. Luke’s account of Christ’s nativity.

Few choral works have captured the imagination as successfully as Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna (Light Everlasting). Composed in 1997 for the Los Angeles Master Chorale, we premiered his work and performed it on our Grammy-nominated recording. The rapturous and powerfully uplifting, luminous Lux uses texts from Latin sources, each containing a reference to light, a symbol of hope and reassurance. National Public Radio said, “…it IS possible for important contemporary music to speak directly to the heart… Lux Aeterna is a rich, complex, intensely moving piece that people will be listening to for a long time to come.”

Concert sponsor: This concert is sponsored, in part, by a generous grant from the Dan Murphy Foundation.

Read the reviews of this concert. “Throughout the evening, one could savor the way the ensemble's voices blended in clearly focused, three-dimensional detail with whatever the organ was pumping out.” — Los Angeles Times

Download a guide to the season: chorale-seasonguide0405.pdf, 808KB