May 23: SURSUM CORDA: Songs of Life and Love

SURSUM CORDA: SONGS OF LIFE AND LOVE

Sursum Corda presents an all-new program in its spring concert on Thursday, May 23 at 7:30 PM at Canterbury United Methodist Church, 350 Overbrook Road in Mountain Brook. Admission is free. The eighteen-voice ensemble is led by Lester Seigel, Professor of Music at Birmingham-Southern College.

This concert focuses on two choral cycles by contemporary American composers, based on centuries-old texts. Ned Rorem, one of the pre-eminent composers for the voice, celebrates his 90th birthday this year, and Sursum Corda commemorates that with a performance of his 1951 cycle "From An Unknown Past." Complementing that will be the cycle "Four Madrigals on Renaissance Texts" by California-based composer Morten Lauridsen, written in 1983, which includes members of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra accompanying. Also featured are three choral art songs by Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel. Historically overshadowed by the fame of her brother, the celebrated German composer Felix Mendelssohn, Mendelssohn-Hensel was an outstanding composer in her own right, and sets some of the most significant German Romantic poetry in these songs from the cycle "Gartenlieder." Other works by Z. Randall Stroope, Renaissance composers Arcadelt and Hassler, and selections ranging from American popular music and folk songs complete this eclectic program.

For more information, visit www.sursumcordaal.com.