Pacific Chorale Announces Season Finale Set For Next Month

The remarkable stylistic range and exceptional musical artistry of the Grammy Award-winning Pacific Chorale, led by Artistic Director Robert Istad, will be on full display in its season finale on Saturday, May 7, 2022, 5:00 pm, at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa. Istad conducts the choir's first-ever performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams' masterwork Dona Nobis Pacem, a sublime setting of Walt Whitman's poetry, with renowned guest artists soprano Deanna Breiwick, a "vocal trapeze artist" hailed for her "sweet sound and floating high notes" (The New York Times), and Grammy-winning bass-baritone Dashon Burton, who delivers "the kind of top-shelf performance that has sealed his reputation as one of today's most compelling performers" (The Boston Globe).

Pacific Symphony joins the chorus for the eclectic program as well, which opens with the world premiere of The Quickening, a new choral fanfare by Grammy-nominated former Pacific Chorale Composer-in-Residence Tarik O'Regan, and also showcases the West Coast premiere of Frank Ticheli's Until Forever Fades Away, a poetic meditation on the elusive nature of time. Other works include Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw's playful Music in Common Time for choir and orchestra and Jake Runestad's exuberant setting of Whitman's "Proud Music of the Storm," evoking the spirit of adventure.

"Ralph Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem is an extraordinary work that pleads with us to consider choosing peaceful resolutions to conflicts," says Istad. "Filled with haunting modal melodies amidst brilliant orchestrations, the work weaves anti-war poetry by Walt Whitman with Biblical references to peace-making, creating a narrative that is both extremely moving and profound. I've paired it with works by four other composers with whom I feel a deep connection."

O'Regan, a musical "chameleon" with "shifting styles" (Texas Classical Review), is collaborating on his new choral-orchestral fanfare for Pacific Chorale with Orange County-based poet and activist Marcus Omari to create a work brimming with energy and power. Omari is a critically acclaimed purveyor of verse, six-time National Speech and Debate Award winner and founding member of the San Diego Slam Poetry Team.

Shaw - hailed as a "classical sensation" (The Guardian) for whom the "voice becomes a visceral embodiment of shape and texture" (New York Times) - at age 30 became the youngest-ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize for music. Music in Common Time, her imaginative post-minimalist work without text, explores the variety of sounds the human voice can create.

Ticheli's vibrant and thought-provoking Until Forever Fades Away includes both text and music by the "optimistic and thoughtful" (Los Angeles Times) composer, who is also a composition professor at USC's Thornton School of Music, and a long-time collaborator with Pacific Chorale.

Istad states, "Featuring on our season finale Jake Runestad's Proud Music of the Storm, which is cinematic in scope and deeply emotional, is especially meaningful to me because we both grew up in the same northern Illinois town of Rockford." Proclaimed a "choral rockstar" (American Public Media), Runestad is one of the most frequently performed and commissioned composers of choral music in the world, having "a particular knack for marrying powerful music to texts that speak to some of the most pressing and moving issues of our time" (Star Tribune).

Immediately following the concert (but not included in the concert ticket), Pacific Chorale will hold its annual gala, this year themed "A Celebration of the Voice" and honoring Pacific Chorale singer and philanthropist, Lenora Meister with the Entrepreneur of the Arts Award, and Pacific Symphony Music Director Carl St.Clair with the Lifetime Achievement for Artistic Excellence, in honor of his three decades of artistic collaboration with the Chorale. All proceeds from the Gala will benefit the Chorale's artistic and educational programming.

Pacific Chorale's 2021-22 Season is made possible by generous support from Platinum Season Sponsor Phillip N. and Mary A. Lyons, Silver Season Sponsor Charles and Ling Zhang, and Silver Season Corporate Sponsor Salt-Away Products.

Single tickets for the concert range from $25-$135. (Separate post-concert gala tickets begin at $300/person.) The Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall is located at 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Audience members must show proof of vaccination and wear masks inside the venue (COVID protocols detailed below). For tickets and information, visit www.pacificchorale.org or call 714-662-2345. For tickets and information about the Pacific Chorale Gala, visit www.pacificchorale.org/gala.

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