Performance #1
Wine & Cheese Reception: 6:00 - 7:00PM
Concert: 7:00PM - 8:00PM
Performance #2
Wine & Cheese Reception: 7:30 - 8:30PM
Concert: 8:30PM - 9:30PM
We at Death of Classical have never repeated a program before, but last December's performances of David Lang's heartbreaking, Pulitzer-winning Little Match Girl Passion by Ekemeles were so soul-blastingly beautiful and transfixingly transcendent, that we decided we're going to do it every year from now on.
Lang's singular choral work tells one of the darkest, most deeply human stories of hope and suffering ever put to paper. Taking Hans Christian Andersen's bleak fairy tale about a poor girl freezing to death on New Year's Eve, and fusing it with Bach’s St Matthew Passion, Lang creates a wrenching expression of empathy, and a reminder that every life matters, and every act of kindness is an act of grace.
Performing this transfixing score are the brilliant minds and voices of Ekmeles, a peerless new music vocal group who have made Lang's masterpiece a staple of their repertoire.
No offense to Handel's "Messiah", but there's a new holiday musical tradition in town...
Come, Daughter
It was Terribly Cold
Dearest Heart
Inan Old Apron
Penance and Remorse
Lights Were Shining
Patience, Patience!
Ah! Perhaps
Have Mercy, My God
She Lighted Another Match
From the Sixth House
She Again Rubbed a Match
When It is Time for Me to Go
In the Dawn of Morning
We Sit and Cry
Ekmeles is a vocal ensemble dedicated to the performance of new and rarely-heard works, and gems of the historical avant garde. They have a special focus on microtonal works, and have been praised for their “extraordinary sense of pitch” by the New York Times. They are the recipients of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation’s 2023 Ensemble Prize, the first American group to receive the honor.
Charlotte Mundy, soprano
Elisa Sutherland, mezzo soprano
Tomás Cruz, tenor
Steven Hrycelak, bass
Jeffrey Gavett, conductor