Season 26 | 2019
VULNERABILITY: The capacity for openness
Friday | 22 February 2019 | 8pm
St Stephen's Episcopal Church
4805 Northeast 45th Street | Seattle
Saturday | 23 February 2019 | 8pm
Holy Rosary Catholic Church
4139 42nd Avenue Southwest | West Seattle
Sunday | 24 February 2019 | 7pm
Christ Episcopal Church
310 North K Street | Tacoma
On the weekend after Valentine’s Day, our society’s celebration of romantic love, The Esoterics explored VULNERABILITY, the capacity for openness, by tracing the emotional journey of lowering of one’s defenses, from expressing desire and devotion, challenging authority and conformity, risking injury, gaining consent, healing from brokenness, navigating through resentfulness, arriving at forgiveness, and emerging again into the world, ready to be vulnerable yet again.
This concert repertoire included texts by James Baldwin, Olympe de Gouges, Bei Dao, Paul Laurence Dunbar, e. e. cummings, Hāfez, Jennifer Powers, Rainier Maria Rilke, Rabindranath Tagore, and William Carlos Williams.
For this concert series, The Esoterics welcomed instrumentalists Willie Braun (violoncello) and Dallas Neustel (clarinet).
CONCERT REPERTOIRE:
Apelsinen har mognat [The oranges are ripe] (2001)
by Tebogo Monnakgotla
Celestial bird (2013)
by Roxanna Panufnik
Consent (2014)
by Ted Hearne
I carry your heart with me (2003)
by Abbie Betinis
I flow… I am (2016)
by Mari Ésabel Valverde
Invitation to love (2016)
by Jennifer Higdon
Manifesto (2015)
by David Lang
Paradise (2017)
by Evan Flory-Barnes
The rewaking (2005)
by Augusta Read Thomas
The rights of woman, from Speeches (2016)
by Anna-Karin Klockar
This song, I sing (2018)
world premiere commission
by Philip Wharton
Two songs of Hafez (2018)
Even after all this time...
When the violin...
by Reena Esmail
INCLUSIVITY: The power of togetherness
Friday | 17 May 2019 | 8pm
St Stephen's Episcopal Church
4805 Northeast 45th Street | Seattle
Saturday | 18 May 2019 | 8pm
Holy Rosary Catholic Church
4139 42nd Avenue Southwest | West Seattle
Sunday | 19 May 2019 | 7pm
Christ Episcopal Church
310 North K Street | Tacoma
In the second program of its season, The Esoterics unveiled the potential power of human togetherness, INCLUSIVITY. This program traced the origins of “otherness” in our first moments of life and explore how these emotions develop into exclusion at both the interpersonal and societal levels, resulting in divisiveness, xenophobia, shunning, persecution, violence, and the loneliness and wandering of exile. This program will also advocate for philoxenia – the desire to show hospitality and acceptance of strangers – which promotes the idea that we are stronger together, as an interdependent human community.
This concert repertoire included texts by Chairil Anwar, José María Arguedas, Li Ba, e. e. cummings, Vivian Eden, Bai Ju-Yi, Amy Beth Kirsten, Salman Masalha, Li Shang-Yin, Donald Woods Winnicott, Malala Yousafzai, Xu Yuan-Zhong, and Chen Zi-Ang.
CONCERT REPERTOIRE:
Doa [A prayer] (2014)
by Marisa Sharon Hartanto
Hombre errante [The wandering man] (2002)
Invocatión
Jakakllito
Dos palomas
Responsorio serrano
Despedida
by Gabriela Lena Frank
!hope (2017)
by Augusta Read Thomas
Know the rules (2019)
by Eric Banks
Make peace (2016)
by David Lang
Mother of exiles (2018)
by Kala Pierson
November prayer, from Messages to myself (2007)
by Christopher Theofanidis
The song about the child (2015)
by Sivan Eldar
Tang poems (1995)
Leaving at dawn
Written on a rainy night
Wild grasses
Monologue
by Chen Yi
Together (2012)
by Melissa Dunphy
Two Chinese folksongs (2003)
A single bamboo can easily bend
A horseherd's mountain song
by Chen Yi
What it might say (2015)
by Ted Hearne
KVANDAL & BÄCK: A double centennial
Saturday | 14 September 2019 | 8pm
St James Cathedral
804 9th Avenue | Seattle
In the third program of this concert season, The Esoterics celebrated the life and work of two Scandinavian choral musicians who were born eight days apart: the Norwegian composer JOHAN KVANDAL (8 September), and the Swedish composer SVEN-ERIK BÄCK (16 September).
Johan Kvandal was the son of a composer who frequented artist colonies in his youth and studied with Nadia Boulanger at the Conservatoire de Paris. With strong influences from both Norwegian folk and international contemporary musics, Kvandal developed his own language, a “modern tonality,” and spoke out strongly again the prevailing avant garde. Kvandal’s Swedish contemporary, Sven-Erik Bäck, after completing his studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Stockholm, traveled to Rome to study with Goffredo Petrassi, a leading teacher of European modernism. While Bäck’s choral music sets conservative Biblical texts, his compositional treatment of these verses was far from traditional.
In this sacred program, The Esoterics performed all twelve of Sven-Erik Bäck’s Motetter för kyrkoåret [Motets for the church year] in Swedish, as well as all of Johan Kvandal’s sacred works for unaccompanied choir. This program was be a fascinating remembrance of these two choral composers, and their not-quite-parallel lives in choral music.
CONCERT REPERTOIRE:
Balladen om freden (Priez pour paix) [The ballad of peace] (Op 72, 1987)
by Johan Kvandal
Tre motetter [Three motets] (Op 35, 1963–1971)
Jeg er kommet som et lys [I have come like a light] (1963)
Og dette er dommen [And this is the verdict] (1971)
Sandelig, sandelig sier jeg deg [Truly, truly, I say to you] (1971)
by Johan Kvandal
Tolv motetter för kyrkoåret [Twelve motets for the church year] (1959-1970)
Bejden, och eder skall varda givet [Ask, and it will be given] (1961)
Den stund kommer [The time is coming] (1964)
Dessa äro de som komma [These are the ones who have come] (1961)
Han blev lydig intill döden [He was obedient unto death] (1959)
Icke kommer var och en [Not everyone will enter] (1963)
Jag är livets bröd [I am the bread of life] (1959)
Jesus, tänk på mig [Jesus, remember me] (1959)
Natten är framskriden [The night is nearly over] (1959)
Och ordet vart kött [And the word became flesh] (1960)
Se, vi gå upp till Jerusalem [Behold, we will go up to Jerusalem] (1959)
Utrannsaka mig [Investigate me] (1970)
Vaken för den skull [Awake, therefore] (1966)
by Sven-Erik Bäck
Underet [The miracle] (Op 69, 1986)
by Johan Kvandal
Våkn op, du som sover! [Awake, you who slumber!] (Op 13, 1950)
by Johan Kvandal
HONESTY: The strength of sincerity
Friday | 18 October 2019 | 8pm
St Barnabas Episcopal Church
1187 Wyatt Way Northwest | Bainbridge Island
Saturday | 19 October 2019 | 8pm
Holy Rosary Catholic Church
4139 42nd Avenue Southwest | Seattle
Sunday | 20 October 2019 | 3pm
St John’s Episcopal Church
114 20th Avenue Southeast | Olympia
In the penultimate program of this concert season, The Esoterics considered the value and strength of sincerity, or HONESTY. This performance examined the fragility of our minds that are incessantly bombarded with information, opinion, and pointless words. It also encouraged us to find grounding and peace in accepting the truth, to calm our restless or idle minds, to exercise self-control from speaking deceitfully, to find comfort in the unanswered question, to expect and embrace unavoidable change, to free ourselves from hatred, fear, and blindness, and to place our trust in good thoughts, words, and deeds.
Singing texts from a wide variety of sources, including: the ancient Greek Aethonians, the Dhammapada, the Tao te ching, and Psalm 34, this program featured texts by the writers Brandon Elliott, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Kathleen Raine, William Shakespeare, Rabindranath Tagore, Euan Tait, and George Graham Vest
This program also included four world premiere commissions our 2018 POLYPHONOS winners: David Ho-yi Chan, Katherine Pukinskis, and Scott Senko, as well as a brand-new piece by Michael Bussewitz-Quarm.
CONCERT REPERTOIRE:
The best friend, from Speeches (2016)
by Anna-Karin Klockar
Change (2008)
by Samantha Fernando
A choice informed (2019)
world premiere commission
by Katherine Pukinskis
Fervor (2018)
by Ted Hearne
The gentlest thing (2001)
by Trevor Weston
God of Owls (2004)
by Abbie Betinis
Guard my tongue (2009)
by Julia Wolfe
Hymn to Aethon (2015)
by Fahad Siadat
Jasmine arrow music (2009)
Thousands
Freedom
Arrow
Jasmine
Peace
by Forrest Pierce
Perhaps (2017)
by Dale Trumbore
So it was I (2019)
world premiere commission
by Michael Bussewitz-Quarm
This great wall (2019)
world premiere commission
by Scott Senko
Truth and lie: When my love swears (2019)
world premiere commission
by David Ho-yi Chan
HUMILITY: The wish for simplicity
Friday | 13 December 2019 | 8pm
St Stephen's Episcopal Church
4805 Northeast 45th Street | Seattle
Saturday | 14 December 2019 | 8pm
Holy Rosary Catholic Church
4139 42nd Avenue Southwest | West Seattle
Sunday | 15 December 2019 | 7pm
Christ Episcopal Church
310 North K Street | Tacoma
In the final program of this concert season, The Esoterics articulated our common desire for emotional simplicity, or HUMILITY. This performance considered the origins of lowliness as a result of humiliation or hiding, surrender or sorrow, generosity or gratitude. It also examined the various different contexts in which we find ourselves humble: while tenderly in love, while patiently or hopefully in need, while meekly witnessing the majesty of nature.
Giving voice to verses from the Bible (John and Galatians), a Mohawk prayer, a speech by Chief Joseph (Hinmuuttu Yalatlat) of the Nez Perce, this program also featured poems of modesty, empathy, restraint, and respect by Pablo Antonio Cuadra, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Annie Finch, Amy Fleury, Gary Snyder, and Dylan Thomas.
CONCERT REPERTOIRE:
A los pescadores [To the fishermen] (2015)
by Gabriela Lena Frank
All we need (2015)
by Dale Trumbore
Fruit of my spirit (2004)
by Augusta Read Thomas
Gratitude sutra (2013)
by Forrest Pierce
O God, thy sea is so great (2017)
by Sarah Rimkus
Songs of lowly life (2011)
Dawn
Life
Not they who soar
Lullaby
Old
by Stacy Garrop
Spiritus mundi [The spirit of the world] (2016)
by Dale Trumbore
Surrender speech, from Speeches (2016)
by Anna-Karin Klockar
We walked through the trees (2014)
by Sarah Rimkus
We were once strangers (2018)
world premiere commission
by Sarah Riskind