The beautiful gardens at Indian Springs provide the backdrop for our May concert, as we welcome the Minneapolis-based bluegrass group Monroe Crossing to collaborate with us.  After an opening bluegrass set from our guests, the singers them for The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass, a work that was commissioned for Monroe Crossing, and has been performed numerous times all over the country.  An end-of-season reception in the gardens caps off our 19^th season, even as we look ahead to our 20^thAnniversary Season.

Water is a common metaphor for life, and water is vital to our existence.  Lakes, rivers, and oceans can be peaceful or turbulent, deep and mysterious or shimmering and refreshing.  This program explores life through the lens of bodies of water.  John Rutter’s REQUIEM, with its Psalm references of being led beside “waters of comfort” and calling from “out of the deep,” is the central work on the program.

The ancient Gregorian chant exclaims, “Hodie Christus natus est” (“Today Christ is born!”), and we are called into the celebration of the Christmas season.  The chant continues, “Today the Savior appears: Today the angels sing on earth, and the Archangels rejoice.”  Featuring Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols accompanied by harp, we add our voices to the angels and Archangels as we proclaim the coming of the Messiah.

Psalm 8 begins, “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.”  Indeed, we are surrounded by a majestic creation, from the starry skies to the ocean depths, and all the creatures on earth.  This program illuminates the beauty all around us, everywhere we look.