The Lyme-Old Lyme High School Concert Chorus will perform a free concert featuring Rutter’s ‘Requiem’ tonight.
The Lyme–Old Lyme High School (LOLHS) Concert Chorus presents Requiem by British composer John Rutter in a free concert this evening in the high school auditorium starting at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free and the public is welcome.
The 30-voice Concert Chorus, which includes students from the junior and senior classes and features soprano soloists Megan Cushman ’16 and Campbell Mann ’16, will be accompanied by an ensemble of student and professional musicians.
The student instrumentalists are Imogene Welles ’16, flute; Gabriel Barclay ’16, timpani; and Shannon Nosal ’18, glockenspiel. Other instrumentalists include: Johanna Lamb, oboe; Julie Ribchinsky, cello; Megan Sesma, harp; and Donna Stamm, keyboard.
Requiem (1985) is one of John Rutter’s most widely performed choral works. While it is based on the Latin Requiem Mass, it is not a complete liturgical piece. Rather, it includes seven sections that together form an arch-like meditation on the themes of life and death: prayers on behalf of all humanity, psalms, personal prayers to Christ, and in the central “Sanctus,” an affirmation of divine glory.
The texts employed (alternately in Latin and English) are chosen from the Missa pro Defunctis, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Psalms.
John Rutter (b. 1945), one of the most well known British composers of the late twentieth century, is also a world-renowned choral conductor and music scholar. He studied music at Clare College, Cambridge, England, and worked closely with Sir David Willcocks of Kings College, co-editing four volumes of Carols for Choirs.
Rutter’s music draws from the work of such English composers as Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten, and has also been influenced by Gabriel Faure and J. S. Bach. Known popularly as the founder of the Cambridge Singers, his music is performed worldwide by church choirs and secular choruses alike.
The LOLHS Concert Chorus presentation of Requiem will take place in the Lyme–Old Lyme High School auditorium on Tuesday, April 12, 2016, at 7:30 pm. The concert is free and open to the public.