NEC Chamber Singers Erica J. Washburn, conductor with This organization is supported in part Thomas Handel, organ by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency, and by a grant from the Boston Cultural Council, a local agency funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council and administrated by the Mayor’s Office of Arts, Tourism, and Special Events. Unauthorized use of cameras and tape recorders is not allowed. Please switch off cellular phones, pagers, and watch alarms. necmusic.edu/cloud Connect with NEC and our music on Facebook, Twitter, and beyond, and sign up for e-mail news bulletins. Thursday, February 25, 2016 7:30 p.m. Church of the Covenant 67 Newbury Street, Boston necmusic.edu/concerts Other Upcoming Concerts at NEC PROGRAM –continued ____________________ SONATA NIGHT XIV, Pei-Shan Lee, coordinator Tuesday, March 8, 2016 at 6:30 p.m., Williams Hall TUESDAY NIGHT NEW MUSIC Herbert Howells Requiem (1936) New music by NEC student composers, performed by their peers (1892–1983) Salvator mundi Tuesday, March 8, 2016 at 8:00 p.m., Pierce Hall Psalm 23 Requiem aeternam LIEDERABEND XXIX , Cameron Stowe and Tanya Blaich, coordinators Psalm 121 An evening of songs featuring student performers from NEC’s voice and Requiem aeternam I heard a voice from heaven collaborative piano departments Wednesday, March 9, 2016 at 6:30 p.m., Williams Hall Joanna Kim, soprano Meghan Jolliffe, alto NEC PHILHARMONIA , Jeffrey Kahane, guest conductor and piano soloist Timothy Ayres-Kerr, tenor Ravel Concerto for Piano in G Major; Adès Three Studies for Chamber Orchestra Ethan Lobenstine, baritone from Couperin; Elgar Symphony No. 1 in A-flat Major, op. 55 Wednesday, March 9, 2016 at 7:30 p.m., Jordan Hall Maurice Duruflé Requi em, op. 9 [NEC ]SHIVAREE , Stephen Drury, artistic director (1902–1986) Introit Wednesday, March 9, 2016 at 8:00 p.m., Brown Hall Kyrie Domine Jesu Christe FACULTY RECITAL : BOB NIESKE , jazz bass and the Bob Nieske 4 Sanctus Dave Tronzo, guitar and gizmos ; Phil Grenadier, trumpet; Jon Hazilla, Pie Jesu percussion Agnus Dei Sunday, March 13, 2016 at 8:00 p.m., Pierce Hall Lux aeterna Libera me FACULTY RECITAL : EDEN MAC ADAM -SOMER , contemporary improvisation In Paradisum Monday, March 14, 2016 at 7:30 p.m., Jordan Hall Pauline Ann Tan, mezzo-soprano Matthew O’Donnell, baritone NEC BACH ENSEMBLE , John Gibbons, director Monday, March 14, 2016 at 8:00 p.m., Brown Hall Thomas Handel, organ Erica J. Washburn , conductor Herbert Norman Howells was one of the most remarkable composers Upcoming Choral Concerts at NEC of sacred vocal music in the 20th century. In 1932, he wrote a Requiem in –continued D major for unaccompanied double choir, but he kept it unpublished for most of his life. It was not until one of Howells’ private letters was NEC CONCERT CHOIR , CHAMBER SINGERS , WIND ENSEMBLE , Erica uncovered that some of the mysteries of this work were solved. Washburn, Jonathan Richter, conductors; Stephanie Beatrice, graduate Born in Gloucestershire, England and gifted as an organist from a young conductor – Weinstein Gott hämmert for chorus and wind ensemble; Brahms age, Howells earned a scholarship to the Royal College of Music (RCM) and Drei Gesänge, op. 42; Pärt Da pacem Domine; Rheinberger Ave Regina and soon became the darling of some of the most notable composers of the late Tribulationes; world premieres of Sanl ıkol Șu Yalan Dünya and Maglione Night, Victorian period, many of whom became his mentors. Christopher Palmer, Veiled Night (arr. for double chorus) his biographer, claims famous English composers such as Hubert Parry, Monday, April 25, 2016 at 7:30 p.m., Jordan Charles Stanford, Walford Davies, Edward Bairstow, Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams “all thought the world of Howells, and he of them”. However, it was Hubert Parry, the director of RCM, who took the Other Upcoming Concerts at NEC greatest interest in the young student, and for the six years before Parry’s death, Howells became like a son to him. In fact, Howells had a knack for FACULTY RECITAL : JOHN MALLIA AND KATARINA MILJKOVIC , composers acquiring mentors. Another luminary of the British choral tradition, Charles Works by Mallia, Miljkovic, and Jed Speare performed by Chris Watford and Stanford, once called Howells, “my son in Music”. Aaron Likness When the Requiem was published in 1980, most assumed Howells Monday, February 29, 2016 at 7:30 p.m., Jordan Hall wrote it in reaction to the death of his son, Michael, who died suddenly of polio in 1935. As it turns out, Howells’ musical reaction to his son’s tragic PERKIN OPERA SCENES death was not his Requiem (which we now know was written three years Performances by graduate opera majors earlier), it was his much-lauded Hymnus Paradisi . The Hymnus is a large-scale Sunday, March 6, 2016 at 7:00 p.m., Brown Hall work for chorus and orchestra, broader than the Requiem in musical scope Monday, March 7, 2016 at 7:00 p.m., Brown Hall and with a larger canvas, but it includes a significant amount of musical material from the unpublished Requiem. Despite the fact that Howells kept BORROMEO STRING QUARTET GUEST ARTIST CONCERT the 1932 Requiem unpublished for most of his life, he nonetheless regarded Sunday, March 6, 2016 at 8:00 p.m., Jordan Hall it highly enough to return to it after his son’s death as a basis for the Hymnus . FIRST MONDAY AT JORDAN HALL After Howells’ death his biographer uncovered a 1932 letter Howells Kodály Serenade for Two Violins and Viola, op. 12; Bartók String Quartet No. 4 wrote to his friend Diana “Dinna” Oldrige. This letter upended previous and Rhapsody No. 1; Hungarian music of Transylvania hypotheses about the Requiem—namely that it was just a rough draft for Performed by Yoojin Jang, Mari Lee, ; Dimitri Murrath, and violin viola; the Hymnus following the death of Howells’ son. This letter helps flesh out the members of the Borromeo String Quartet: Nicholas Kitchen, the genesis of the Requiem. The following excerpt reveals Howells’ initial Kristopher Tong, violin; Mai Motobuchi, viola; Yeesun Kim, cello; reason for composing it. Beth Bahia Cohen, hegedű; Áron Székely, kontra; Ildikó Nagy, bögös, ütőgardon “Dinna! I’ve added a complete new sort of work to my holiday Monday, March 7, 2016 at 7:30 p.m., Jordan Hall list — a brief sort of ‘Requiem’ (on the Walford Davies model, but more extended). I began flirting with the idea on Sunday. I finished it yesterday and am copying it out. It’s done specially for Erica J. Washburn King’s College, Cambridge — otherwise I might not have Director of Choral Activities dreamed of it….” Conductor and mezzo-soprano Erica Washburn is NEC’s Director of Choral Activities. Prior to her appointment at NEC, Washburn was an This letter also sheds light on Howells’ atypical choice of texts for this non- instructor of voice and member of the conducting faculty at the Greatbatch traditional requiem. A brief examination of the origins and traditions School of Music of Houghton College, Houghton, NY. She has also served surrounding the requiem mass will aid in understanding how Howells’ piece on the faculty for the New York State Summer School for the Arts School stands apart. The requiem, an ancient Roman Catholic liturgical rite of Choral Studies, and as conductor of the East Carolina Women’s Choir, memorializing the dead, has undergone significant changes and trans- Assistant Conductor of the Eastman Women’s Chorale, and instructor of secondary voice while matriculated at East Carolina University and the formation since it first appeared sometime in the 10 th century. The normative formula for a requiem service, solidified by the Council of Trent Eastman School of Music. While residing in Rochester, NY, Washburn was featured on the (1545–63) required a standardized order of Latin texts: an introit Requiem Eastman-St. Michael’s Recital Series, performing selections of Mahler’s aeternam , a Kyrie , a Dies Irae, Domine Jesu Christe, Sanctus and Agnus Die , Lux Des with the Eastman School Symphony Orchestra, Vaughan aeterna , and finally Requiescant in pace . As the centuries passed, composers Knaben Wunderhorn began to transform the genre from a liturgical and Eucharist-based form into Williams’ Serenade to Music with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and a non-liturgical concert-hall work. Most notable was Johannes Brahms’ Vivaldi’s Gloria with the Genesee Valley Orchestra and Chorus. Other stage performance credits include Ravel’s , German Requiem (1857–68) which jettisoned the traditional requiem texts Shéhérazade and instead included texts from the Lutheran Bible that Brahms himself Toensing’s Night Songs and Evening Prayers, Madame Lidoine in Poulenc’s chose. Dialogues of the Carmelites , Rebecca Nurse in Robert Ward’s The Crucible , Howells continued this tradition of transformation in his Requiem, even Aminta in Mozart’s Il re pastore , and portraying the role of Mother/Allison in the premiere of Lee Hoiby’s This is the Rill Speaking . noting in his letter that he chose texts similar to those in a requiem Henry Walford Davies (1869–1941) had composed in 1915. Davies had been one Upcoming Choral Concerts at NEC of Howells’ teachers at RCM, and his little-known Requiem drew texts from (all programs subject to change) a variety of sources, including Anglican burial rites from the Book of Common Visit necmusic.edu for complete and updated concert information Prayer , the Psalms, and standard Latin requiem mass settings. Howells borrows almost all of Davies’ texts for his own work, the singular difference NEC SYMPHONY , CONCERT CHOIR , CHAMBER SINGERS , David Loebel, being that Howells set Psalm 23 instead of Psalm 130. Even if the text Erica J.