Elgin Master Chorale celebrates 75th anniversary with 'The World Imagined' concert May 15
On Sunday, May 15, the Elgin Master Chorale will present the North American premiere of "The World Imagined," the result of a three-year collaboration with renowned choral composer Gabriel Jackson and EMC's own maestro, Andrew Lewis.
Joining the chorale in this performance is Lyric Opera tenor soloist Hoss Brock and the Elgin Symphony Orchestra.
"The World Imagined," commissioned to celebrate the Chorale's 75th anniversary season, is a 45-minute oratorio that examines creation, and humankind's small, yet transformative place in our infinite universe.
The concert will be 3:30 p.m. in the Blizzard Theatre at Elgin Community College, 1700 Spartan Drive, Elgin. Tickets are $29 or $24 for students or seniors. Tickets are available at elginmasterchorale.org or (847) 622-0300.
Its world premiere last year at the Worcester Three Choirs Festival in the United Kingdom was heralded by Roderic Dunnett of the UK Church Times, as an "electrifying, massive music achievement."
The music is set to poems and writings of noted international poets, including Americans Walt Whitman and Walter Stevens, woven together by powerful interrelated imagery.
According to Dunnett, "The World Imagined" "succeeds in exploring light and space; sun and stars; sea and sand; vision, horizon, transformation and ascent. It is a cleverly lucid, mischievous, mysterious, often daring, and visionary mixture of poetic imagery."
On this same program, the Elgin Master Chorale also will present Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's critically acclaimed "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast," the first of three cantatas inspired by Longfellow's epic poem, "The Song of Hiawatha."
Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) achieved fame overnight with the premiere of this work in 1898 at The Royal College of Music when he was just 22 years old. At the time, it rivaled Handel's "Messiah" and Mendelssohn's "Elijah" in popularity.
Another program highlight is Elgin's Poet Laureate Gareth Mann and his presentation of a poem EMC commissioned to mark this special anniversary year.