If you no longer want to receive our e-mails, you may unsubscribe here. Join The Esoterics for MEMORIAM Honoring the memory of those lost in tragedy When tragedy strikes, the human voice raised in song plays a unique role in fulfilling our emotive needs. In MEMORIAM, The Esoterics explores the power of a cappella choral music in voicing the unspeakable. April 20, 2009 marks the 10th anniversary of a day in which innocent lives were taken at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. In MEMORIAM, The Esoterics will recognize the portent of this event by singing a newly commissioned work by Bay Area composer Paul Crabtree. In the piece, entitled Meanwhile, Crabtree sets an excerpt from Simon Armitage's epic poem, Killing time, which provocatively conjures up a suburban dystopia, where flowers are a forbidden commodity, and kindness a shocking human trait. MEMORIAM will also include a repeat performance of Founding Director Eric Banks' piece Vitam impendere vero written in honor of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya who was killed in her Moscow apartment building in 2006. An outspoken opponent of the Putin regime, Politkovskaya was slain on Putin's birthday, and the true killers have yet to be brought to justice. Five additional compositions round out the program from MEMORIAM: In honor of the tragedy of September 11, 2001, Dominic Argento composed a setting of Shakespeare's sonnet Sonnet LXIV. The piece explores loss on both a personal and historical scale, including the text, "When sometimes lofty towers I see downraised ..." Jaakko Mäntyjärvi's Canticum calamitatis maritimæ sets a psalm traditionally read for those lost at sea, in honor of lives lost when the ferry Estonia sank in the Baltic Sea in 1994, with over 900 lives lost. Justin Merritt's piece, Hay días (There are days), sets a poem by Jaime Quemain, an independent newspaper editor in El Salvador who, in 1980, was slain by a paramilitary death squad at the age of 30. Merritt was one of the first winners of The Esoterics' POLYPHONOS composition competition and Hay días was the resulting prize commission. John Muehleisen's Perplexed music, his setting of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's sonnet, is dedicated to the memory of his cousin. In addition, The Esoterics is proud to announce the Northwest premiere of John Muehleisen's most recent composition, When all is done, written as a commission for the University of Wyoming Concert Choir. Muehleisen's work sets a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar as a tribute to Matthew Shepard, who died as the victim of last decade's most notorious hate crime, in 1998. NEW ESOCAST: For one member of The Esoterics MEMORIAM has very personal importance. Christine Bell is a Columbine survivor. To hear her personal reflections about the composition "Meanwhile" click on the latest edition of the EsoCast at TheEsoterics.org. Please join The Esoterics for this mediation on lives cut short in the course of human events. The Esoterics' MEMORIAM performance dates and locations are as follows: Saturday 18 Apr 7:00 PM • Lynnwood Trinity Lutheran Church • 6215 196th St. SW Sunday 19 Apr 3:00 PM • Tacoma Christ Episcopal Church • 310 N K St. Saturday 25 Apr 8:00 PM • Seattle St Joseph's Catholic Church • 732 18th Ave E Sunday 26 Apr 3:00 PM • West Seattle Holy Rosary Catholic Church • 4139 42nd Ave SW Tickets are $20 at the door, $18 in advance online, $15 for students, seniors, the un(der)employed, and the differently-abled. Discounts are available for groups of five or more at $12 per person. Active singers of any choral group may attend for only $10. Advance tickets are available online at www.TheEsoterics.org (through PayPal.com). The Esoterics' Season 2009 has been made possible by grants from 4 Culture, ArtsFund, Classical King FM 98.1, The Horizons Foundation, Meet the Composer, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Nesholm Family Foundation, Nikko Media Center, The Norcliffe Foundation, The Seattle Foundation, Seattle's Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs and The Washington State Arts Commission. This e-mail was sent to you because you are on The Esoterics' mailing list. If you no longer want to receive our e-mails, you may unsubscribe here. Make sure our mail reaches you: add info@TheEsoterics.org to your address book. The Esoterics info@TheEsoterics.org