2016 Highlights Arts Empowering Life Foundation

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your continued support of the fine arts organizations of Arts Empowering Life! We wanted to share with you some of the highlights of 2016. Many thanks to the artists, stage hands, designers, staff, and support crews that made these events spectacular! We wish you a joyful Christmas season and a blessed New Year.

Elements Theatre Company concluded their three-year celebration of the 400th anniversaries of Shakespeare's Life and Death. The 2016 season opened with Labyrinth: A Legacy of Language, paying tribute to Shakespeare’s brilliant life, while taking us on a journey through the ages with several playwrights influenced by him. The excerpts explored themes of revenge and forgiveness, culminating with works by Shakespeare himself. The Company traveled to Italy in May where they were hosted by Mount Tabor Ecumenical Centre. They performed Quem Quaeritis: Mystery Plays in Latin in conjunction with a lecture series in five Tuscan cities. In August, Elements' production of King Lear came to life amidst stone columns and capitols in the Atrium of the Church of the Transfiguration to a sold-out house every night. The Company also hosted Speak What you Feel, a five-day Shakespeare intensive actors retreat using King Lear as the source material. Crowning their season, in November the Company performed All My Sons by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Arthur Miller, and guest-directed by Joanna Weir Ouston from Oxford School of Drama, London, England.

“Elements Theatre Company is about more than entertainment: every piece they undertake explores the breadth of humanity - its horror, its loveliness, and its humor - with honesty. These actors hold up the mirror for themselves and in turn give us, the audience, the courage to look into that mirror too, and not shy away from what we find.” —Julie Harris, Actress With a final score of 95.05, Spirit Winter Percussion clinched the silver medal in the Independent Open WGI Championships in Dayton, Ohio, last April with their show, Aggression. Over the course of the season, the ensemble explored this concept and its vicious and virtuous qualities, discovering that aggression in itself is not bad, but it's how we use it - for good or for evil - that determines the outcome. Click here to watch the 2016 award-winning show!

Spirit had the biggest crowd yet for the summer experience camps, as well as for auditions. Welcoming some new faces for the 2017 Season, the ensemble is well on their way to preparing for another incredible season.

Gloriæ Dei Cantores began their season in January with concert repertoire spanning the globe from Latin America to Estonia, featuring composers Bach, Pärt, and Casals. In remembrance of All Saints’ Day, the choir performed a series of concerts featuring Mozart’s Requiem and Britten’s The Company of Heaven, directed by Richard K. Pugsley with orchestra and guest soloists Martha Guth (Soprano), Kathryn Leemhuis (Alto), Aaron Sheehan (Tenor), and Andrew Nolen (Bass). The choir will be releasing their 51st album, Rachmaninoff’s All Night Vigil, in January of 2017. This album was recorded in collaboration with members of the St. Romanos Cappella, The Patriarch Tikhon Choir, The Washington Master Chorale, and soloists Dmitry Ivanchenko, Mariya Berezovska, and Vadim Gan.

“They sing with absolute fluency and authority.” –Gramophone

Pisa Cathedral, Photo Credit: Massimo Giannelli In keeping with its mission to support the arts, Mount Tabor Ecumenical Centre for Arts and Spirituality welcomed Elements Theatre Company to Italy this May, for the celebration of theatre, Gregorian chant, and the visual arts. Elements Theatre Company presented ancient mystery and miracle plays and Gregorian chant in the cathedrals of Barga, Siena, Pisa, Pistoia, and the Duomo Museum in Florence, surrounded by centuries-old art depicting those stories. The performances enhanced a symposium "The Word Made Flesh" coordinated by Monsignor Timothy Verdon, which explored the history and theology of the twelfth- century ambos in these cathedrals. In September, Mount Tabor hosted members of the Gabriel V Brass Ensemble at the villa Via Sacra in Barga for two weeks of study with the Italian Gomalan Brass Quintet, culminating in a performance at the Duomo of St. Christopher - an enriching musical and cultural exchange! Finally, in November, local Italians participated in a day-long retreat at the villa in Barga for spiritual refreshment and study of Gregorian Chant.

Gabriel V performed summer and winter concerts in collaboration with the organists at the Church of the Transfiguration, drawing enthusiastic crowds of young and old alike. In the fall, members of the ensemble traveled to Barga, Italy, where they studied with the Gomalon Brass, a professional quintet made up of players from major orchestras throughout Italy. The study trip concluded with a concert by Gabriel V at the Duomo of St. Christopher in Barga.

The E. M. Skinner organ is getting closer to completion. Upon completion, it will include 150 ranks and over 12,000 pipes. Crowds of all ages gathered on the common outside the Church of the Transfiguration for the summer Brown Bag Organ lunches and the Lenten and All Saints' concerts were well attended. Plans are underway for the new console. Learn more about the organ building project!

What's next?

2017 is filled with exciting plans for the arts! Spirit of America Band hosts the annual Pyware Drill Design Retreat here on Cape Cod. In May and October, Mount Tabor will explore the theme of "What Theology Risks in Artistic Creation" through the Twenty-First Century sacred art, in international symposiums in the United States and Europe. A highlight of the symposium will be Gloriæ Dei Cantores' and Elements Theatre's joint performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams' fully staged opera, The Pilgrim's Progress, with orchestra and guest soloists, performed at the Church of the Transfiguration, Orleans, MA. We'll keep you up to date, and we hope you can join us!

We wish you a very Happy New Year! Thank you for your generous support of the arts groups of Arts Empowering Life.