Of Love and Eternity | Chamber Choir Ireland & Guest Director Krista Audere

Krista Audere, winner of the Eric Ericson Award 2021, joins Ireland's national chamber choir as guest director for Of Love and Eternity, this May at All Hallows Chapel, DCU.

Exploring biblical and poetic texts on love and faith, the programme features sacred pieces by Nana Forte, Rhona Clarke, and Andris Dzentis. In Pierre Villette's best-known work, Hymne à la Vierge, he sets words by Roland Bouhéret, drawing on the early music he grew up performing, and combining it with textures and harmonies inherited from Messiaen and Poulenc.

Robert Schumann's sense of Romantic imagination shines through in his four pieces for two intertwining choruses, with texts by Friedrich Rückert, Joseph Christian von Zedlitz, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Using poetry from his home country, Peteris Vasks' introspectively evocative Silent Songs express the poignant hope of the Latvian experience.

Jean Francaix's Troix poèmes de Paul Valéry bring the words of the celebrated French symbolist poet to life; and Rudolf Escher's Songs of Love and Eternity accentuate the dramatic imagery in five poems by Emily Dickinson: These are the days when birds come back; Wild nights, wild nights; Heart, we will forget him; The wind tapped like a tired man; and To make a prairie.

Programme

Robert Schumann (Germany, 1810-1856)—Vier doppelchörige Gesänge, Op. 141

Pierre Villette (France, 1926-1998)—Hymne à la Vierge

Peteris Vasks (Latvia, b. 1946)—Silent Songs

Rhona Clarke (Ireland, b. 1958)—Regina Coeli

Jean Françaix (France, 1912-1997)—Troix poèmes de Paul Valéry

Nana Forte (Slovenia, b. 1981)—Miserere mei

Rudolf Escher (Netherlands, 1912-1980)—Songs of Love and Eternity

Andris Dzenītis (Latvia, b. 1978)—Pater Noster

Host or Publisher Chamber Choir Ireland