From the Archives

Click here for a PDF of the program

At the end of last season, and at the suggestion of my wife, I decided to ask the singers what their “desert island” (apologies to the BBC…) choral pieces were. That is, if we found ourselves all castaway together in the middle of the Pacific, far from civilization, what pieces would they hope would be in the local island choral library for perusing and performing?

The result was a list of truly great music, some quite familiar to me, some not. My job was to rummage through this inspiring pile of repertoire and attempt to come up with a coherent program that goes beyond a simple “greatest hits” list. That program is what you’ll hear tonight.

This was such a delicious challenge, and such a great idea (thanks, Dori!), that we’ve decided to make it a yearly fall event from now on. And while you will ultimately be the judge of my programming success, I can promise you, at least, that everything you’ll hear tonight is most certainly the best of the best, performed with the passion of singers singing pieces they can’t live without.