The Church Classics series in St Mary’s Cathedral Tuam will finish its 2011 season with Resurgam performing Songs of Farewell at 8.00pm on Thursday next, October 6.
Resurgam was established in 2003 and is a project-based ensemble of up to 32 voices comprising some of Ireland’s finest choral singers.
A feature of the choir’s work is the presentation of the great sacred repertoire of the renaissance and baroque periods. Resurgam has performed many times in St Nicholas Collegiate Church in Galway city, both as a capella and in partnership with the Irish Baroque Orchestra, with which the group enjoys a special and ongoing relationship.
Performances throughout Ireland and the UK have included major Irish festivals, the Cork International Choral Festival, Ardee Baroque and the Galway Early Music Festival, with many internationally renowned conductors, as well as its own founder-director Mark Duley. New Zealand born Mark Duley, now a resident of Headford, is chorus master to the RTÉ Philharmonic Choir and artistic director of Pipeworks (formerly the Dublin International Organ and Choral Festival), and is organist of St Nicholas Collegiate Church here in Galway.
Song of Farewell explores the themes of farewell and death, of darkness and light, of life beyond earthly cares. It does this by marrying a well-known religious liturgical text – the haunting Nunc Dimittis (translated as ‘Lord lettest thou thy servant depart in peace’) – with various poetic settings exploring the same themes.
The Nunc Dimittis itself is heard in music by the composers Palestrina and Holst and in two recent Irish settings: the first by Garrett Sholdice (winner of the 2002 Gerard Victory Commission and the 2005 National Concert Hall Composer’s Choice Commission), and the second, in Irish, by Simon MacHale (winner of the 2010 Seán Ó Riada Competition).
The five spirituals from Tippett’s oratorio A Child of our Time are also in the programme alongside Hubert Parry’s Songs of Farewell, beautiful settings of scriptural texts and poetry by Henry Vaughan and John Donne among others. A commanding contemporary work completes the line-up. Judith Bingham’s latest choral work, In Distant Thunder is receiving its Irish premiere as part of Songs of Farewell.
The concert in the beautiful setting of St Mary’s Cathedral costs €16 (€14 concession) for admission. Tickets are available in Quinn’s Bishop Street Tuam, from classicallinks 091 799258 and at the door.