Monday, Mar 5, 2018
Westminster Schola Cantorum leaves Princeton on its 2018 Spring Tour to Virginia and North Carolina on Saturday, March 10. The ensemble, conducted by James Jordan, will perform a program, titled “Journey: Crossing the Bar” in these locations:
Saturday, March 10 – 7:30 p.m.
St. George’s Episcopal Church
Fredericksburg, VA
Sunday, March 11 – 7 p.m.
White Memorial Presbyterian Church
Raleigh, NC
Monday, March 12 – 7 p.m.
Trinity Episcopal Church
Upperville, VA
The program includes music by Mozart, Brahms, Lauridsen and Mealor. A highlight will be the premiere of the composition for which the concert is titled: Crossing the Bar by Anthony Bernarducci. The work is a setting of the Tennyson’s poem with the same title, which the poet wrote three years before his death and employs the metaphor of a sand bar to describe the barrier between life and death.
Westminster Schola Cantorum is one of three curricular choirs at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J. Composed of all students in their second year of study at the college, this ensemble forms a vital link between the technique and artistry gained by students in their first-year experience at the college in the Westminster Chapel Choir and Westminster Symphonic Choir, which performs with many of the world’s finest orchestras and is a cornerstone of the Westminster experience. The ensemble's 2017-2018 season includes two collaborations with Westminster Chapel Choir: performing Brahms's Liebeslieder Waltzes at the War Memorial in Trenton as part of Westminster's Transforming Space project in the fall and a joint concert at Lincoln Center in the winter.
Westminster Schola Cantorum’s Grammy-nominated conductor James Jordan is recognized and praised throughout the musical world as one of America’s pre-eminent conductors, writers, music psychologists and innovators in choral music. He has been described as a “visionary” by Choral Journal, which cited his book Evoking Sound as a “must read.” His more than 40 books explore both the philosophical and spiritual basis of musicianship, as well as aspects of choral rehearsal teaching and learning and are considered to be essential books in the conducting profession. At Westminster Choir College he is professor and senior conductor, and he conducts Westminster Schola Cantorum and the critically acclaimed Westminster Williamson Voices. He is also director of the Westminster Conducting Institute and co-director of the Choral Institute at Oxford.
His recordings with the Westminster Williamson Voices have garnered wide critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. Choir and Organ wrote about their Grammy-nominated recording Annelies, “Jordan’s instinctive understanding of the score makes this a profound and emotionally charged experience.”