Chicago Gargoyle Brass And Organ Ensemble To Premiere Novel New Work At Valentine's Concert

The Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble, with guest artists The Oriana Singers and City Voices, will present the world premiere of British-born composer Peter Meechan's "Love Songs (Shakespeare)" at a holiday-themed concert titled "Shakespeare Valentines" at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 10, 2018, at First United Church of Oak Park, 848 Lake St., Oak Park, Ill.

Commissioned by the Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble, "Love Songs (Shakespeare)" is a half-hour neo-Romantic work in four movements for brass quintet, organ, narrator, and choir, inspired by four of William Shakespeare's poems on love.

"The audience will develop a crush on this music,'" says Rodney Holmes, founder and music director of the Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble.

Movements are titled "Lost Love," "Love's Betrayal," "Love's Dream," and "Love's Ideal." Each includes the complete text of a Shakespeare sonnet (a 14-line poem) and reflects on love from a different perspective: despair, lust, infatuation, and fidelity.

"In two of the movements, choristers will sing the sonnets to instrumental accompaniment. In the others, a narrator will read sonnets over a background of instrumental music, similar to what's heard in Aaron Copeland's 'Lincoln Portrait,'" Holmes says.

Stephen Squires will conduct the new work.

Another musical premiere and nod to Old England is a brief suite from English Baroque composer Henry Purcell's "Come Ye Sons of Art," arranged by Holmes for choir, brass, and organ.

Brass players will perform David Marlatt's arrangement of a suite from Purcell's semi-opera "The Fairy-Queen," which Purcell adapted from Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream"; and Craig Garner's Gargoyle-commissioned arrangement of Gustav Holst's "Song Without Words, 'I'll Love My Love.'"

Unaccompanied choral music, conducted by William Chin, will include a set of Elizabethan-era works: John Bennet's "All Creatures Are Merry-Minded," Michael Cavendish's "Come Gentle Swains" and Thomas Weelkes's "As Vesta Was from Latmost Hill Descending." A set of 20th-century English choral works will include John Ireland's "The Hills," Ralph Vaughan Williams's "Silence and Music," and Michael Tippett's "Dance, Clarion Air."

"Shakespeare Valentines" will be the Chicago Gargoyle ensemble's first-ever concert celebrating Valentine's Day and the first time the group has enlisted singers for a concert of secular music.

Single tickets for the Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble's "Shakespeare Valentines" concert are $20 adult general admission, $15 seniors 55 and older, free for those 17 and younger. Tickets are available at gargoylebrass.com.

"The Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble plays with warmth, elegance, and panache," said U.S. music magazine Fanfare in a review of the ensemble's debut CD. "[They] are perfect companions for the music lover in need of calming nourishment."

The group takes its whimsical name from the stone figures atop gothic buildings at the University of the Chicago, where the now-professional ensemble got its start in 1992 as a brass quintet of faculty and students. Under its founder and artistic director Rodney Holmes, it has evolved over the decades into an independent organization of classically trained musicians that focuses on commissioning and performing groundbreaking new works and arrangements for brass and pipe organ. More information at gargoylebrass.com.

Formed in 1979, the Oriana Singers are led by Chicago Symphony Chorus assistant conductor William Chin. The intimate, six-voice professional ensemble (soprano-soprano-alto-tenor-baritone-bass) presents a wide range of a cappella music. Its website is www.oriana.org.

Also directed by Chin, Oak Park-based City Voices is an amateur chorus of some 30 singers known for professional-level performances of works from Monteverdi and Handel to Mahler and Whitacre. Website: cityvoiceschicago.org.

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