Same Light Different Lanterns: Sacred Music from Around the World

Same Light, Different Lanterns: Sacred Music from Around the World
Friday, March 15 & Saturday, March 16, 2024 | 8 pm

Our March concert combines two especially exciting things: performing a piece of music we have not sung before and collaborating with other artists.

In past seasons, Atlanta Master Chorale has performed with a range of guest artists on a variety of instruments, including a guitar, a harp, a cello, a violin, percussionists, a jazz trio, large and small orchestras, many vocal soloists, and, most recently, a bluegrass band. Plus, we have the great pleasure of making music with Jon Easter on piano and organ on a regular basis. But we have never performed the featured work of the March concert, “This Love Between Us: Prayers for Unity,” and we have never collaborated with anyone playing two of the instruments used in this work.

Created by young composer Reena Esmail, “This Love Between Us: Prayers for Unity” was written for choir, chamber orchestra, sitar, and tabla. The sitar and tabla are commonly found in traditional Indian musical culture but rarely used in western classical music. Esmail, an Indian-American, deftly merges these musical traditions into a mesmerizing piece for our times.

The first half of the concert will feature Leonard Bernstein’s great “Chichester Psalms,” sung in Hebrew.

We hope you will join us for this evening of sacred choral music with a global flair.