Mark your calendars for Tulsa Oratorio Chorus 2015-16 events. The regular season will be composed of three events, and two collaborations with the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra and one collaboration with Tulsa Opera are also planned!
Season tickets will be available after June 1, 2015 for the regular season concerts. Single event tickets will be available at www.Myticketoffice.com after August 15th.
Tickets for collaboration events will be available at www.Myticketoffice.com later in the year.
October 9, 2015 7:30pm
Samuel Barber–Prayers of Kierkegaard
Christopher Theofanidis–The Here and Now
Lorton Performance Center
University of Tulsa
8th Street and Harvard Avenue
The great poems of Kierkegaard and Rumi are given added passion in these choral/orchestral settings. Contemporary classical choral expression at its finest, along with Tulsa premiere performances.
Samuel Barber’s lyrical genius is in great evidence in this thrilling cantata based upon prayers by poet and theologian, Søren Kierkegaard, scored for soprano, chorus, and orchestra. Built upon late nineteenth century harmonic foundations, Prayers of Kierkegaard (1954) demonstrates Barber’s great dramatic composition abilities. From the tender aria for soprano “Lord Jesus Christ”, to the fierce outward pleas of “Father in Heaven”, Barber makes a wide dramatic sweep in this rare major choral work from one of the greatest American composers of the 20th century.
Contemporary composer Christopher Theofanidis has compiled thirteen short poems by the poet Jalal ad-Din Rumi in an expression of joy, love, and gratitude, and mingled these ideas together with an underlying sense of longing and restlessness to return to the divine. Theofanidis is able to blend elements of Asian music, minimalism, high chromaticism, and brightly colored impressionism in this enormously lyrical, enjoyable, and soul-searching work. The Here and Now is a pageant of orchestral color, sometimes subtle, and more often, joyful.
November 21, 2015
7:30pm
Bob Chilcott–St. John Passion
Tulsa First Baptist Church
403 S Cincinnati Avenue
Contemporary British composer Bob Chilcott has been called a “hero” of today’s choral music expression. The composer is in residence with the Tulsa Oratorio Chorus and conducts his own composition, St. John Passion, in the retelling of this epic story.
Bob Chilcott’s mighty setting of words from the Gospel of St John is a dramatic yet optimistic retelling of the Passiontide story. As with J.S. Bach’s great Passion settings, the role of the Evangelist is taken by the tenor soloist, who provides a melodious narrative throughout the work, in arioso style. The words of Jesus and Pilate are performed by solo baritones. Within the narrative, the SATB chorus becomes a crowd or a group of soldiers, commenting on the story in short outbursts, although the larger role of the choir is to perform the four meditations and five hymns that support the story. For the meditations-two of which include soprano solos-Chilcott has selected English poems from the 13th to the early 17th centuries. The five well-known hymn texts are set to new, original melodies, which are also intended for performance by an audience.
January 30, 2016
7:30pm
Click here for tickets to this concert
Joseph Haydn–Mass in Time of War
Ludwig Beethoven-Symphony No. 9/4th Movement
Cascia Hall Performing Arts Center
Timeless classical choral masterworks that continue to speak to the drama of the human spirit, and the urgency for inner and outer peace.
In 1796, Joseph Haydn composed what would be one of his most innovative compositions, his Missa in tempore belli, or Mass in Time of War. The work is often called the Paukenmesse, or the Kettle Drum Mass, due to his introduction of timpani into a genre that heretofore had excluded drums. In addition, for the first time in his sacred music, Haydn scored the work for clarinets, creating the richest orchestration of any of his masses.
The most often performed work in the twenty-four year history of the Tulsa Oratorio Chorus is Beethoven’s “Choral Symphony”, Symphony No. 9. Similar to Haydn’s Mass in Time of War, innovation is the word that also characterizes this symphony of Ludwig Beethoven, as the composer becomes the first to introduce a chorus and soloists into a symphonic work. This timeless masterpiece is a musical autobiography celebrating the triumph of beauty and order over chaos. This concert presents only the final choral movement of the symphony, which is a masterpiece unto itself build around the “Ode to Joy” theme.
Click here for tickets to this concert
Tulsa Oratorio Chorus Collaborations
Home for the Holidays Concert
December 5, 6, 2015
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Part of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra Concert Series
Tickets: TulsaSymphony.org
Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection” by Gustav Mahler
March 12, 2016
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Part of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra Concert Series
Tickets: TulsaSymphony.org
Samson and Delilah by Camille Saint-Saens
May 6-8, 2016
Tulsa Performing Arts Center
Part of the Tulsa Opera Season
Tickets TulsaOpera.org