SYBILLA

The complete Hildegard motets of Frank Ferko

The Esoterics will bring its seventeenth season to a spectacular finish with four performances of the complete Hildegard motets by esteemed American composer Frank Ferko (b 1950). Ferko's motets, composed between 1993 and 2010, set texts by the 12th-century mystic Hildegard von Bingen. In this concert, The Esoterics will perform fifteen motets by Ferko, along with two sequences by Hildegard. The texts of Ferko's motets come from Hildegard's Symphonium celestium revelationum, and in his realization of Hildegard's visionary texts, Ferko employs organ-like textures and harmonies that invoke the music of Messiaen and Poulenc. In Ferko's motets, lavish harmonies are placed in direct contrast with acerbic phrases of Medieval counterpoint. Hildegard's plainsong, also to be sung in this concert, will illuminate the simplicity from which Ferko's motets evolved.

The Esoterics looks forward to hosting Frank Ferko for the second weekend of our concert series, during which he will give a pre-concert lecture one half-hour prior to each concert.

Please join The Esoterics and Frank Ferko for this fantastic concert series!

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