We’re Back!
Why am I so excited?
The past 7 or 8 months have been unique in our lifetimes. Semi-isolation, inability to gather to make music, no hugging friends outside of the immediate bubble … but also far less time in the car, more home cooked meals, more time to read, meditate, etc.
And now, thanks to the many of you who stepped up to help fund some new music, Volti has been able to commission four wonderful composers — Anne Hege, Danny Clay, Joel Chapman, and Pamela Z – to create music especially designed for online rehearsal and presentation.
Anne Hege’s “it sounds like all my dreams” premiered online on November 21, a wonderful experience enjoyed by one of the largest Volti audiences ever. Danny Clay is currently rehearsing his new piece with the singers. I attend rehearsals and watch these composers weave compositional ideas and technology into something that I can see will result in very interesting performance outcomes.
I watch the upwellings of creativity, the enormous enthusiasm of composers and singers, and dare I say it, love, and I come away uplifted and full of admiration for Anne, Danny and the superb singers of Volti.
AND THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS WHY I’M SO EXCITED.
Please join us for the premiere and Danny Clay’s “Singing Puzzles” on December 19. New works from Joel Chapman and Pamela Z will be coming up in 2021.
Bob Geary
Artistic Director
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Tune In to the music and lives of Volti singers with short videos and personal journal entries.
Zone Out with some of the most beautiful and meditative choral music written in the 21st century.
We are excited to bring you new music again! Click here to find out about our next online concert.
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OUR MUSIC LIVES ON . . . AND ONLINE!
Volti – Singing without a net since 1979
ZONE OUT
“The Night House” by Yu-Hui Chang
For her Volti commission in 2009, Yu-Hui Chang set two poems by the wonderful poet Billy Collins. Click on the link below to listen to the second of the set. The full piece - "Being: Two Collins Songs" - is on the Volti CD "House of Voices." The CD title is taken from...
Privilege Mvmt 5: We Cannot Leave
Composer, singer, bandleader and recording artist TED HEARNE (b.1982, Chicago) draws on a wide breadth of influences ranging across music's full terrain, to create intense, personal and multi-dimensional works. Ted composed Privilege for Volti in 2009, when he was the...
Ecstatic Meditations: No. 4. How God Answers the Soul
Ecstatic Meditations: No. 4. How God Answers the Soul by Aaron Jay Kernis “Ecstatic Meditations” is a set of four pieces by Aaron Jay Kernis, with texts by the medieval mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg. The National Endowment for the Arts has named this work one of 75...
TURN UP
Robert Paterson’s “Graffiti Canons”
“Graffiti Canons” was inspired by graffiti images (as the title implies). It is particularly effective to listen to it while watching the accompanying slide show (YouTube link below). Volti “discovered” Robert Paterson when he was our young composer in residence under...
Ruth Crawford: Three Chants for Women’s Chorus
It’s highly unusual for Volti to sing music written in 1930, but when you listen to this you’ll understand why. We sang this piece at the Bard Music West festival in 2018, “The World of Henry Cowell.” Movement 1, To an Unkind God https://youtu.be/qsFVlKz__cg ...
Pandora’s Gift
Pandora's Gift by Mark Winges Pandora’s Gift is a 35-minute-long staged choral piece composed by Mark Winges, premiered in May 2015 at Z Space in San Francisco by Volti and Ensemble from the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir. Libretto by Denise Newman; staging by...