ST. JOHNSBURY/GREENSBORO – Halcyon Chorale, Vermont’s newest chamber choir, presents its winter concert on Friday, Jan. 20, at 7 p.m., at South Congregational Church in St. Johnsbury, and Sunday, Jan. 22, at 3 p.m., at Highland Center for the Arts.
Formed in summer 2022, Halcyon Chorale is a self-directed chamber choir dedicated to celebrating choral music from the Medieval age through the present day. Their concert program traverses the last six centuries, featuring works by Clement Janequin, Heinrich Schütz, J. S. Bach, Giacomo Carissimi, Felix Mendelssohn, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Francis Poulenc, and contemporary composers Jocelyn Hagen (USA), Meredith Monk (USA), and Hamid Mardkhanjari (Iran). The program explores themes of enduring and overcoming strife, with pieces such as Poulenc’s “Un Soir de Neige” and Janequin’s “La guerre” offering vastly different portraits of living through war; Mendelssohn’s “Richte mich,” Gott “(Psalm 43)” and Carissimi’s “Historia di Jephte” dwelling on tested faith; and Hagen’s “I Saw Two Clouds at Morning” and “Love/Light” reveling in the richness of human existence.
