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Join us in the online broadcast of our December 2021 concert, recorded and shared via Zoom! Purchasing access to this event welcomes you to the Zoom premiere on Monday, December 13, 2021, at 8:00PM, along with the ability to view the recording online through December 31, 2021. You may also join us in person at Broadway Presbyterian Church on Friday, December 10, at 8:00PM or Sunday, December 12, at 4:00PM.
This concert features the world premiere of the New Amsterdam Singers commission I Go Among Trees by Robert Paterson, with guest marimbist Makoto Nakura. Paterson chose splendid texts for this 15-minute work: the title poem by renowned poet and nature lover Wendell Berry, May Sarton’s wry take on the cold weather in New England, and John Freeman’s fast-moving, colorful ode to the kestrel. The marimba is a brilliant instrument evoking flight.
Also on the program: Vincent Persichetti’s 12-movement Winter Cantata for women’s voices, flute and marimba; Francis Poulenc’s set of prayers of St. Francis for unaccompanied men’s voices, featuring the composer’s trademark luminous harmony; and three works by Black composers Rosephanye Powell, Uzee Brown, and John Work, characterized by lively syncopated rhythm or yearning emotion. Plus, we’ll present the New York premiere of We Will Stand Up by Karen Siegel. Inspired by the youth plaintiffs demanding a stable climate in Juliana vs. United States, the work was commissioned by a 10-choir consortium.
| I Go Among Trees, World premiere, commissioned by NAS | Robert Paterson |
| We Will Stand Up | Karen Siegel |
| Winter Cantata | Vincent Persichetti |
| The Word was God | Rosephanye Powell |
| Deus in Adjutorium Meum | Benjamin Britten |
| O Radiant Dawn | James MacMillan |
| Wake me up, Lord | Uzee Brown |
| Newborn | John Wesley Work III |
| Quatres petites prières de Saint François d’Assise | Francis Poulenc |