featuring Alturas Duo
Scott Hill, guitar
Carlos Boltes, charango and viola
Gonzalo Cortés, Andean woodwinds
With the guest ensemble Alturas, the Choruses of UC Davis and
Nicolás Dosman bring the rhythms and holiday vocal traditions
of the Americas to Davis. Works include “Navidad Nuestra” by
Ariel Ramírez, which is an Andean-influenced folk telling of
the nativity story; “Al Shlosha D’varim,” a traditional Hebrew
text set by Allan Naplan for the Ithaca Children’s Choir; and
“Abreme la Puerta,” a traditional holiday song from Puerto
Rico, which is sung using syllables only (no words).
Program
Concert Choir
arr. Albert McNeil: Hold Out Your Light (with Chamber
Singers)
Jeffrey Ames: Gloria Fanfare
Manuel de Sumaya: Albricias Mortales
Nunes Garcia: Cum Sancto Spiritu
Chamber Singers
arr. Cristian Grases: Abreme La Puerta
Andrea Ramsey: In The Bleak Midwinter
B.E Boykin: Dormi Jesu
Kenneth Lampl: Adon Olam
arr. Moses Hogan: Glory, Glory, Glory to the Newborn
King
In a program of music written entirely by living composers, the
choruses at UC Davis perform works ideal for intimate concert
venues such as the Pitzer Center. The repertoire incorporates
many different choral traditions, including American
Spirituals (“The Storm is Passing Over,” arranged by Barbara
Baker), Venezuelan folk songs (“La Paloma” by Cristian Grases),
Filipino or Visayan folk songs (“Rosas Pandan,” arranged by
George Hernandez), and modern choral harmonies (as in Marques
Garrett’s “My Heart Be Brave”).
featuring the UC Davis Concert Band
Pete Nowlen, director
and Rollo Dilworth, visiting composer
If the American Dream includes hope of a better life in a
promised land, then the story we tell must also acknowledge
that dream has not always been equally available to all
Americans. This concert gives us both sentiments of this
“American Story.”
Rollo Dilworth set his choral and wind ensemble work “Weather”
to the poem of the same name by Claudia Rankine. “Weather” (the
poem) appeared in the New York Times Magazine shortly after the
murder of George Floyd in 2020. It captured in a few
pointed phrases the pain of the pandemic and of America’s
racial conflicts. Using American-born musical traditions,
including the Blues, Rollo Dilworth juxtaposes Rankine’s words
against a musical fabric, which challenges us to accept this
part of our American story, and in time weather that challenge.
André Thomas, a composer known around the world for his
spirituals, wrote his “Mass of Love and Joy” (filled with
moving and joyous spirituals) in 2018 upon his own retirement,
and which concludes and lifts up this choral concert. Thomas
says of his work, “anyone can relate to spirituals. Everyone
goes through trials and everyone looks for comfort.”
Program
Chamber Singers
Norman Dello Joio: A Jubilant Song
Samuel Barber: Agnus Dei
William L. Dawson: Soon-Ah-Will Be Done
Concert Band
Selections to be announced.
— Intermission —
Combined Choruses
Rollo Dilworth: Weather
with the UC Davis Concert Band
and Shinae Kim, piano
“Historically, the arts have always fulfilled the dual roles of
responding to change while at the same time creating change.
Claudia Rankine’s poem, Weather, is a poem that gives
voice to the voiceless, especially those who have been and
continue to be marginalized because of difference. It responds to
and reflects realities that are both culturally specific and
humanly universal. Claudia Rankine challenges all of us (no
matter your background or lived experience) to know better, to do
better, to take action, and to become agents of social justice
and social change.”
