University Chorus: American Songs and Spirituals
Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center
Jeffrey Thomas, conductor
UC Davis Professor of Music and Conductor of the University Chorus Jeffrey Thomas leads the chorus one last time before his retirement after 22 years. For full details, read the media advisory.
A program of American songs and spirituals, as well as James Whitbourn’s Luminosity, written for choir, viola, tanpura, tam-tam, and organ.
Ellen Ruth Rose, viola
Rita Sahai, tanpura
Don Scott Carpenter, organ
Whitbourn’s Luminosity is a multi-media work, commissioned by the conductor James Jordan of Westminster Choir College for the Westminster Williamson Voices, the women of the Westminster Schola Cantorum, the Blair Academy Singers (conducted by William Hammer) and the black-light dance company Archedream, for performance in Philadelphia Cathedral, April, 2008. The text, compiled and edited by the composer, centers on the transcendent beauty of creation expressed by luminaries down the ages. Texts are taken from the writings of St. John, St. Teresa of Avila, Ryonen, St. Augustine, Julian of Norwich, and St. Isaac of Nineveh.
