04/17/2026
I’m excited to be conducting Songs of the Earth, our concert celebrating the blue planet at St. Luke’s Cathedral on Sunday, May 17, at 2:00 PM While one program can offer only a small sampling of the huge number pieces that our world has inspired over the centuries, it is our pleasure to bring you the widest variety that we can in this concert. Among the words that inspired our composers are a biblical evocation of the rising spirit of spring, medieval celebrations of summer, a catalogue of stylized bird calls compiled and set by the 16th Century composer Clément Janequin, and celebrations of the German and English countrysides set by the Mendelssohn siblings Felix and F***y, and Ralph Vaughan Williams respectively. I’ve set a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay imagining the beauties of the seaside from a geographical or psychological place far away, while the African-American poet William Stanley Braithwaite conjures an almost palpable lakeside scene on an August evening in a setting by Peaks Island composer Faith York. Other composers include Healey Willan from Canada, Orlando di Lasso from Flanders, and two other Americans: John Harrison Tenney from Massachusetts and Frank Ticheli from Michigan (who provides his own text about how music can heal the pain of a war-torn earth and spirit). I hope that our offerings will serve to deepen your experience and love of what the Book of Common Prayer calls “this fragile earth, our island home” and that you’ll get your tickets at www.renaissancevoices.net. RV friends, see you at St. Luke’s!
