Above: AVM is promoting its November concert. (image from www.AVMsingers.org)
The Assabet Valley Mastersingers, a regional chorus which includes Southborough singers, is promoting its concert “Celebrate Peace”.
The concert is scheduled for Sunday, November 20, 2022 at 3:30 pm at St. John’s High School (378 Main Street, Shrewsbury).
Founder and Artistic Director, Dr. Robert P. Eaton, will conduct the ensemble of singers accompanied by an orchestra, with solos by Soprano Mary Johnston Letellier and Baritone Philip Lima.
The performances is “a collection of four pieces of work entitled Dona Nobis Pacem from four different composers”. The chorus promotes:
The traditional Dona Nobis Pacem , often attributed to Palestrina or Mozart, is a short prayer for peace from the Agnus Dei of the Latin Mass. In the round for three parts, it is sung twice in every line. The melody has been passed orally. Keane Southard’s setting is a short unaccompanied work written in 2014. The composer indicates the primary themes evolved over the several years and only upon completion did he realize that the opening and closing sections are in the form of a canon as is the traditional. Latvian composer, Pietris Vasks, incorporates elements of Latvian folk music into a contemporary idiom. The emotional content of his setting is reflected in his masterful use of color and texture which holds our attention on this one single phrase, Dona Nobis Pacem, for 12 minutes. R. Vaughan Williams had witnessed war in France 1914-1918. This powerful work, his setting of Dona Nobis Pacem, vividly proclaims the harshness and cruelty of war, the intense and somber burial of a father and son, the anguished cry for peace, and a final message of good will and peace toward men. Dona Nobis Pacem. Give Us Peace.
Tickets cost $25 for general admission and $20 per senior. Children ages 12 and under may attend for free with an adult. Although the chorus is no longer enforcing vaccines or masks, “There will be a reserved mask only section for those who prefer that environment.”
The tickets may be purchased online in advance or at the door.
AVM’s concerts are supported in part by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and local Cultural Councils, including Southborough’s. AVM is also supported in part by grants from the Avidia Charitable Foundation; from Southborough Community Fund, a fund of the Foundation for MetroWest.
