Seattle Choral Company: Follow the Star – featuring 'The Ballad of the Brown King'
Advance: $25 ($20 senior, $5 youth/student)
At the door: $30 ($24 senior)
- Namarea Randolph-Yosea, tenor
- North Corner Chamber Orchestra (NOCCO)
- Jasmine Johnson, mezzo-soprano
Undine Smith Moore — I Believe This is Jesus
Rosephanye Powell — Christus Natus Est
Robert Nathaniel Dett — Ave Maria
Margaret Bonds — St. Francis' Prayer
Florence Price — Song for Snow
Traditional — This Little Light of Mine (arr. Moses Hogan)
Moses Hogan — Glory, Glory, Glory to the Newborn King
Franz Xaver Gruber — Stille Nacht ("Silent Night") (arr. Rhonda Polay)
“Of the three wise men
Who followed the star,
One was a brown king
From afar.”
– Langston Hughes
For their 13th annual Cathedral Christmas concert, the Seattle Choral Company will amplify messages of diversity and hope for the festive season. The Ballad of the Brown King, a Christmas cantata composed by Margaret Bonds, in collaboration with poet Langston Hughes, will be performed in Seattle for the first time. Written in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr, Bonds' nine-movement choral work focuses on Balthazar, the "Brown King" of the Three Kings, who traveled to Bethlehem to witness the nativity scene.
According to Dr. Malcolm J. Merriweather, who prepared the orchestration for regional choral performances:
" In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, recognition of historic and ongoing bias toward Black people in classical music has been widespread. Bonds noted obstacles she faced because she was Black, and she was always aware of gender discrimination throughout her career. As this cultural and social evolution continues to unfold, institutions are making efforts to reveal that American concert music is not just Barber, Copland, and Bernstein, but also Margaret Bonds, Julia Perry, and Valerie Capers. The journey will be long, but now is the time to dismantle the errors of the past and reshape our curricula and repertoire accordingly. With this notion, let us wipe away the residue of oppression and continue to unveil these masterpieces and their masters."
Seasonal works composed and arranged by musicians of color round out this family holiday tradition. As always, a candlelit rendition of Silent Night concludes the concert.
Pre-concert talk with SCC Director Freddie Coleman will take place at 7pm.
About Seattle Choral Company
Founded in 1982 by Artistic Director Freddie Coleman, the Seattle Choral Company has, over the course of 40 years, become one of the region's most accomplished and respected choral organizations. Maestro Coleman's finely-tuned yet spirited interpretations of the masterworks of classical choral music have been acclaimed by critics and audiences, including Berlioz's Te Deum, Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, Orff's Carmina Burana, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Haydn's Creation, Mozart's C minor Mass, Bach's St. John Passion, and many more. After a recent performance at Benaroya Hall featuring Johannes Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem, The Gathering Note wrote that the performance "was anchored by deep emotions, a strong sense of purpose, and an excellent advocate in Freddie Coleman and the Seattle Choral Company."
Freddie Coleman has also championed America's finest contemporary choral composers, offering area listeners their first live hearing of such works as Arvo Pärt's Te Deum, Philip Glass' Itaipu, Hawley's Songs of Kabir, Roxanna Panufnik's Westminster Mass, and Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna. In 2001, the SCC commissioned a new choral work, Seattle, by New York composer William Hawley, as part of the city of Seattle’s sesquicentennial celebrations. Additionally, the Company has commissioned and premiered new works from gifted Seattle composers, such as Donald Skirvin and Bern Herbolsheimer. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently applauded this commitment, stating "it's not surprising that Coleman…would devote an entire program to contemporary music. He has long been an advocate for living composers."
In the 1980s the Seattle Choral Company toured to Australia and the former Soviet Union. (Their work as cultural ambassadors was recognized with a commendation from the Washington State legislature.) The many albums it has recorded, including The Moon Is Silently Singing, When the Morning Stars Sang Together, Carmina Burana, and Unearthed, have been highly praised and received extensive radio exposure. The Company has recorded soundtracks for Public Television (Death: the Trip of a Lifetime) and NBC (Crime and Punishment and Noah's Ark), and its recordings have been used in at least a dozen Hollywood movie trailers.
The Seattle Choral Company has become a valued collaborator with other performing arts organizations in the region. It has appeared on stage with the Pacific Northwest Ballet many times, including several mountings of Kent Stowell's staging of Orff's Carmina Burana, and Hail to the Conquering Hero, featuring choruses by Handel. In 2010, the SCC appeared with the Seattle Youth Symphony in Mahler's Symphony No. 2 ("Resurrection") at Benaroya Hall. The SCC has appeared with the Seattle Symphony on many occasions, including Those Glorious MGM Movie Musicals, Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Holiday Pops with Doc Severinsen, Holiday Pops with Marvin Hamlisch, New Year's Eve with the Seattle Symphony, and most recently The Matrix Live In Concert. On four occasions, they have appeared at the Paramount Theater in the touring production of Video Games Live, and members of the Company sang in both the Seattle and Portland productions of Star Wars In Concert. The SCC is partnered with the Northwest Sinfonietta, and is an artist-in-residence at Saint Mark's Episcopal Cathedral.
http://www.seattlechoralcompany.orgAbout Jasmine Johnson, mezzo-soprano
https://www.portlandopera.org/about/people/staff/jasmine-johnson/