GO
Advanced Search

awaken | Christopher Rouse world premiere

Sunday, March 25 at 7 pm

Featuring baritone Sanford Sylvan and the Los Angeles Children's Chorus

A Requiem for our time receives its eagerly-awaited world premiere. The biggest, most emotionally raw piece that Pulitzer Prize-winning Christopher Rouse has written to date — a staggering juxtaposition of apocalyptic vision with music of heart-breaking intimacy and compassion. Large orchestra, double chorus, children’s chorus and baritone soloist — who has the courage to take it on? Music director Grant Gershon, the L.A. Master Chorale and American baritone Sanford Sylvan, that’s who.

The American composer, who will be present for his Requiem’s premier performance, has created a body of work that possesses a driving energy, perhaps unequalled in its intensity. The New York Times calls Rouse’s music “some of the most anguished, most memorable music around.” Thing to know is that, even though Rouse has racked up impressive academic credentials, he’s not an ivory tower kind of guy. As a rock music historian, Rouse is as hip to Led Zeppelin as he is to Berlioz, Bruckner and Shostakovich.

With Requiem, the composer confronts the reality of losing a loved one. The piece begins a cappella with the baritone soloist intoning an elegiac work by Irish poet Seamus Heaney. Later there are texts by Michelangelo and English poets Siegfried Sassoon, Ben Jonson and John Milton. Rouse says “I look at the baritone as going on a personal odyssey of experiencing death within the larger context of death within humanity.”

“When the music history of the late 20th century is written...the explosive and passionate music of Rouse will loom large.” — Baltimore Sun

Download a guide to the season: chorale-seasonguide0607.pdf, 1.1MB