american voices
Thursday, May 8, 2025 @ 7:30 pm
Church of the Ascension
36 Fifth Avenue at Tenth St
New York, NY 10011
Soloists to be announced
Music by:
Samuel Barber | Bora Yoon
Charles Ives | Randall Thompson
Horatio Parker | Moses Hogan
Margaret Bonds |David McKinley Williams and more!
Featuring the full range of American choral music, we celebrate the music brought to our shores by Americans who arrived from all over the world. Our program weaves together the voices of American composers across generations, showcasing a musical landscape rich in history and innovation. We open with the grandeur of Horatio Parker’s Stant Syon Atria, a double-chorus masterpiece from Hora Novissima, and move through the luminous harmonies of James Bassi’s Quem Pastores Laudavere. The deeply expressive Agnus Dei, Samuel Barber’s choral adaptation of his iconic Adagio for Strings, will be a poignant centerpiece. Traditional American folk and spiritual melodies, including a suite by Moses Hogan and the evocative Garden Hymn, arranged by Annabel Morris Buchanan, will transport us to the heart of Southern choral traditions.
This concert showcases the innovative artistry of Korean-American composer, vocalist, and sound artist Bora Yoon. Renowned for her genre-defying creations, Yoon crafts immersive audiovisual soundscapes by blending digital devices, voice, and found objects from diverse cultures and eras. Her compositions featured here exemplify her unique ability to intertwine classical forms with evolving technologies, offering listeners a transcendent experience that bridges past and future. Yoon's work has been featured at prestigious venues worldwide, including Lincoln Center and the Edinburgh International Festival, and she currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Music Composition at Reed College.
America’s most famous choral piece – Randall Thompson’s Alleluia – is included, along with a set of choral favorites by American iconoclast Charles Ives, including Serenity, Turn ye, turn ye, and his greatest work, Psalm 90 which features four sets of bells from distant corners of the church and the Manton Memorial Organ.
Explore our 2024-25 Season
