THE SEASON CONTINUES!
Our mid-season report is a happy one. We are still glowing from the successful and exhausting completion of three sold out performances plus a recording session of Path of Miracles by Joby Talbot in collaboration with ODC/Dance. Legendary choreographer and creator KT Nelson once again led us on the path through the austere and magnificent spaces of Grace Cathedral.
Now we move on to the third and final program of our concert series, followed by guest appearances at the Chorus America National Conference in San Francisco, and Festival Napa Valley in July.
In May, we conclude our annual concert series with a signature program including premières of new music by two of the Bay Area’s leading composers, Eric Tuan and Mark Winges. On that program we will also perform Given Sound by Trevor Weston and we will reprise Hematite by Caroline Shaw, one movement of her longer piece Ochre which Volti premièred under the direction of Valérie Sainte-Agathe on our fall 2022 concert. Finally, we will sing Žibuoklė Martinaitytė’s Aletheia, recently premièred by the Latvian Radio Choir. Volti has previously performed works by Žibuoklė including The Blue of Distance, which you can hear on our CD The Color of There Seen from Here.
On June 2 Volti will be one of six Bay Area vocal ensembles selected to perform at Grace Cathedral for the Chorus America National Conference, and on July 18 we are pleased to return to Festival Napa Valley to perform Symphony No. 6, Vessels of Light by Lera Auerbach and selected works for chorus and orchestra by Gordon Getty.
Stay with us! Things are interesting, and both music and Volti are unstoppable.
Bob Geary
Artistic Director
Volti is an instrument –
bridging ethnicities, cultures, and generations in our community and beyond.
As a dynamic vehicle for the musical expression of artistic and personal perspectives,
we give voice to each person’s unique contribution, and to the breadth of human experience,
through the power of voices combined.
We invite you – composers, listeners, singers – to join us
in the discovery of what it means to be a citizen of this world, at this critical moment in time.
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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...