programme
Sarah Kirkland Snider (1973) Mass for the Endangered (Dutch premiere)
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (arr. Gottwald)
performers
Cappella Amsterdam
Consensus Vocalis
Laurens Collegium Rotterdam
Doelen Ensemble
Daniel Reuss conductor
background
This program features a prominent place for the complete performance of Mass for the Endangered by Sarah Kirkland Snider for chamber choir and ensemble. This marks its Dutch premiere.
Kirkland Snider’s mass, with a libretto by poet/writer/illustrator Nathaniel Bellows, is a celebration of and an elegy for the natural world—animals, plants, insects, and the planet itself—a call for greater awareness, urgency, and action. During the performance, some evocative illustrations by Bellows will be displayed. The Doelen Ensemble accompanies Cappella Amsterdam for this work in the beautiful setting of the old St. Bavo Church in Haarlem.
Mass for the Endangered was commissioned by the New York Choir of Trinity Wall St (conductor Julian Wachner).
To conclude the program, Cappella Amsterdam, Consensus Vocalis, and Laurens Collegium Rotterdam will perform Clytus Gottwald’s iconic 16-part arrangement of Mahler’s Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen from the Rückert-Lieder.
"The origin of the Mass is rooted in humanity's concern for itself, expressed through worship of the divine-which, in the Catholic tradition, is a God in the image of man. Nathaniel and I thought it would be interesting to take the Mass's musical modes of spiritual contemplation and apply them to concern for non-human life-animals, plants, and the environment. There is an appeal to a higher power-for mercy, forgiveness, and intervention-but that appeal is directed not to God but rather to Nature itself."