PARTNER EVENT: Music of Light with the Concert Singers of Cary

This concert given by the Concert Singers of Cary with Mallarme Music as the orchestra, conducted by Dr. Nathan Leaf, features two pieces: a beloved and oft-performed modern choral work, and a work first premiered in 1928 and rarely performed since then.

The popular requiem Lux Aeterna (Eternal Light) was composed by Morten Lauridsen in 1997, the year his mother died. She was the “muse” who introduced him to music and taught him to play the piano. Lux Aeterna is a serene and intimate choral work centered on the themes of hope, reassurance, and consolation of grief.

Amy Beach’s Canticle of the Sun is a rare find. She was the first highly successful American female composer of large-scale classical music during the turn of the 20th century and is well-known to professional musicians (though hardly known by today’s general public.) Her Canticle of the Sun, for choir and orchestra, offers a musical setting for text by St. Francis of Assisi, giving honor and blessings to “my Lord God with all His creatures.”