Choral Arts Initiative Announces 11th Season
Artistic Director Brandon Elliott and Choral Arts Initiative (CAI) will present their most ambitious season to date, holding quarterly concerts that explore all facets of the human experience.
The season opener on November 6, 2022 will include world premiere works by Dale Trumbore and Dylan Dylan Trần, adding to the over eighty works premiered by CAI throughout the past decade. CAI’s annual PREMIERE | Project Festival, which closes the season, offers selected composers a workshop/commission experience with in-depth seminars, mentoring sessions, and a premiere concert and recording session with the award-winning choral ensemble.
Irvine, CA – July 7, 2022 – Today, Artistic Director Brandon Elliott and his Choral Arts Initiative announce their 2022-23 season. The southern California based ensemble – recognized as a champion of new music as a recipient of the American Prize in Choral Performance and an ASCAP/Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programming – will present four quarterly concerts in its 11th season, each exploring a different dimension of the human experience.
Choral Arts Initiative’s season opens November 6, 2022, with, “Home”, a concert anchored by the world premiere of composer Dale Trumbore’s The Opposites Game, which asks an almost unanswerable question: “What is the opposite of a gun?”. “Home” also includes the world premiere of Tupelo Poems by Dylan Trần and the West Coast premieres of Migration by Michael Gilbertson and To Propagate a Home by Ayanna Woods. Following on March 5, 2023 is the West Coast premiere of Kile Smith’s Canticle and on May 21, 2023, a concert featuring Rex Isenberg’s Messiahs: False and True, along with the West Coast premieres of Joel Thompson’s Hold Fast to Dreams, B.E. Boykin’s Holding the Light, Ariel Sol Bertulfo Schwartz’s Willow Poem, and the a cappella world premiere of Derrick Skye’s Glimpse Elation. The season will close with CAI’s annual PREMIERE | Project Festival, during which selected emerging composers come to finalize a composition in a workshop setting. The concluding concert includes a live and recorded public premiere of each composer’s work.
“Season 10 was an inspiring year as we emerged from the pandemic crisis, looked back at our history, and dreamed of what we could do next,” says Brandon Elliott. “ Season 11 is our first step into the next decade of our mission-driven work to partner with living composers and integrate these works into the fabric of our community. The power of working with living composers is their ability to capture our lived experiences in the here and now. We have had ample time to sit in contemplation and questioning during these past two years. As we hold the mirror up to ourselves and look inward, we also look outward. As we seek answers to the future, we often must look at our past. As we seek comfort, one must look to our home--a person, a place, a feeling. These thoughts, which speak to the core of our human experience, serve as the narrative thread for Season 11. The vibrantly diverse selection of composers, texts, sounds, and guest artists will offer our listeners a compelling, thought-provoking, and inspiring music curation this season.”
Choral Arts Initiative | Season 11 | 2022-23
Brandon Elliott, Artistic Director
Tickets for all performances may be purchased online.
Fall 2022:
HOME
Sunday, November 6 at 4:30 p.m.
St. Mark Presbyterian Church
2200 San Joaquin Hills Rd, Newport Beach 92660
In the opening concert of their 11th season, Choral Arts Initiative explores the question of what makes a home: is it a place? A feeling? Or the people who live in it? The program is anchored by a world premiere version of Dale Trumbore’s The Opposites Game for chorus and piano. Brendan Constantine's text for the work plays with the idea of having a "right" answer as it asks what may be an unanswerable question: “What is the opposite of a gun?” Other works on the program include the West Coast premieres of Michael Gilbertson’s Migration, Ayanna Woods’ To Propagate a Home, and the world premiere of Dylan Trần’s Tupelo Poems.
Program Repertoire
Migration by Michael Gilbertson (West Coast Premiere)
The Opposites Game by Dale Trumbore (World Premiere)
Whispers of Jasmine by Julia Adolphe
To Propagate a Home by Ayanna Woods (West Coast Premiere)
“Home” from The Sacred Veil by Eric Whitacre
Tupelo Poems by Dylan Trần (World Premiere)
Kevin Mills, cello
Winter 2023:
Canticle by Kile Smith
Sunday, March 5 at 4:30 p.m.
St. Mark Presbyterian Church
2200 San Joaquin Hills Rd, Newport Beach 92660
CAI presents the West Coast premiere of Kile Smith’s 65-minute Canticle, which sets the stunning Spiritual Canticle text by Saint John of the Cross – a canticle poem that he authored and memorized while imprisoned for nine months. The canticle poem is an allegory that uses the metaphor of marriage to explain the mystical process that follows the soul until it reaches its union with God.
Cellists:
Jocelyn Francis
Michael Phillips
Eddie Chang Yue
(Cello contractor & score preparations: Kevin Mills)
Percussionist (vibraphone, bass drum, tambourine):
Christina Cheon
Spring 2023:
ECHOES
In “Echoes” CAI first examines Messianic leaders – heroic and horrific – throughout history in Rex Isenberg’s Messiahs: False and True, juxtaposing the exploration of the past with inspiring and hopeful works for our future by Joel Thompson, B.E. Boykin, and Ariel Sol Bertulfo Schwartz.
Sunday, May 21 at 4:30 p.m.
St. Wilfrid’s Episcopal Church
18631 Chapel Ln, Huntington Beach, CA 92646
Program Repertoire
Messiahs: False and True by Rex Isenberg
Hold Fast to Dreams by Joel Thompson (West Coast Premiere)
Holding the Light by B.E. Boykin (West Coast Premiere)
Willow Poem by Ariel Sol Bertulfo Schwartz (West Coast Premiere)
Glimpse Elation by Derrick Skye (World Premiere, a cappella version)
Guest Organist:
Bill Wells
Guest Percussionist:
Christina Cheon
Summer 2023:
PREMIERE|Project Festival