LA Master Chorale Presents Best of Ellington's Sacred Concerts

To conclude the Los Angeles Master Chorale's 47th Season and Music Director Grant Gershon's 10th Anniversary Season, the Maestro and chorus spotlight the musical genius and the deeply spiritual side of jazz legend Duke Ellington with highlights from his legendary Sacred Concerts on Sunday, May 22, 2011, 7:00 p.m., at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Gershon shares the podium with noted flutist/composer/conductor James Newton, conducting many of the compositions, including Come Sunday, which Ellington originally assembled into a series of three legendary concerts - unifying jazz and devotion - beginning with a 1965 performance in San Francisco's Grace Cathedral. Several stellar guest artists join the "jazz party" to help culminate the Chorale's season.

Gershon and Newton first teamed up in March 2004 to present 10 of Ellington's sacred compositions. "James has become one of my dearest friends and most cherished musical collaborators," says Gershon, a versatile pianist who put himself through USC by playing jazz gigs. "We're both so passionate about this music of Ellington's, which remains largely unknown 40 years after it was debuted but is clearly a high point in Ellington's career."

Ellington's bold fusion of jazz and church - complete with chorus, gospel singers, jazz band and dancers - was written during the last decade of his life, between 1965 and 1973. Using the language of music, he eloquently sermonized on the subjects of personal freedom, spirituality and communication with God. Ellington stated, "This music is the most important thing I've ever done or am likely to do."

Gershon is especially interested in the pieces that feature the choir prominently. "It's so different from a typical classical concert where a single large piece, like a mass, is set in stone," he explains. "Ellington himself freely mixed and matched works from all three of his Sacred Concerts. On any given night, Duke would go out with his band and call tunes on the spot."

As a boy, Ellington attended church every Sunday and was deeply religious but, with the exception of an occasional religious theme in his music, he kept his beliefs to himself until 1965, when he was commissioned to write a liturgical work to be performed during the year-long consecration celebration of San Francisco's new Episcopal landmark, the Grace Cathedral. The resulting composition, the first of his Sacred Concerts, a compilation of earlier pieces that he reworked, would go on to win a Grammy Award in 1966 for best original jazz composition. Downbeat magazine gave Ellington's 1969 two-LP recording of Sacred Concerts "all the stars in God's heavens." His second Sacred Concert collection, written some three years after the first, was comprised of newly composed music, and the final collection, the third Sacred Concert written the year before his death, is considered the most intimate of the three collections.

"The Sacred Concerts," says Gershon, "are one part gospel, two parts straight-ahead Elllington big band, another part eclectic influences from classical, spiritual and African styles."

Concert tickets to range from $19 to $124. Student Rush seats are $10 and are available at the box office two hours before the performance. For tickets and information, please call (213) 972-7282, or visit www.lamc.org. (Tickets can no longer be purchased at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Box Office except on concert days starting 2 hours prior to the performance.) The Walt Disney Concert Hall is located at 111 South Grand Avenue at First Street in downtown Los Angeles.