Los Angeles Master Chorale Celebrates 20th Anniversary of Lux Aeterna With Concerts & Gala 6/17-22

The Los Angeles Master Chorale brings works by six Los Angeles composers together on a concert program celebrating the 20th anniversary of Morten Lauridsen's choral masterwork Lux Aeterna June 17-22 in Walt Disney Concert Hall. The concerts will include world premieres by Billy Childs and Moira Smiley, and a U.S. premiere by Artist-in-Residence Eric Whitacre, performed alongside Lux Aeterna. The program will also feature Iri da Iri by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Shawn Kirchner's Heavenly Home: Three American Songs. The Master Chorale's full roster of 115 singers will be accompanied by a 47-piece orchestra and Artistic Director Grant Gershon will conduct.

The Los Angeles Master Chorale and the late Paul Salamunovich, who was the ensemble's Music Director, gave the world premiere of Lux Aeterna in April 1997 in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. From the outset, the work-a five-movement requiem-sent ripples throughout the choral world, its popularity propelled by the Master Chorale's Grammy-nominated recording released in 1998. Two decades later, Lux Aeterna (Eternal Light) is performed all over the world and is broadly considered to be a contemporary classic with Lauridsen's influence as a composer widely recognized, reflected by his 2006 designation as an American Choral Master by the National Endowment for the Arts and his being awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2007, among many honors.

In addition to celebrating Lux Aeterna, the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Gershon will perform works by five other Los Angeles-based or associated composers including the world premieres of In Gratitude by Billy Childs and Time in Our Voices by Moira Smiley, both commissioned by the Los Angeles Master Chorale for this concert.

Childs' work sets a poem text he wrote for a cappella mixed choir. Lauridsen and Childs have a close connection, Lauridsen having been one of Childs' composition professors at USC. Composed as a companion piece to Lux Aeterna, Childs said he did not want to mimic the piece but wanted to have a theme that is about expanding ourselves as human beings, settling on concepts of gratitude and forgiveness: "There are three ideas in this poem that I express gratitude for: for knowing love; for knowing loss and pain; and for the gift of song, and being able to express myself through music."

Smiley also drew upon the themes found in Lux Aeterna for her work Time In Our Voices, focusing on the changing sound of the human voice across a lifetime. She asked young singers who were part of the Master Chorale's High School Choir Festival to use their cellphones to record friends and family talking about time. She subsequently built playback of these recordings into her piece.

The concert will also feature the U.S. premiere of Child of Wonder by the Master Chorale's Swan Family Artist-in-Residence Eric Whitacre. A co-commission with the Netherlands Radio Choir, the work will be premiered in the Concertgebouw in May by that ensemble. The Los Angeles performances will be the U.S. premiere and guest conducted by Whitacre. Child of Wonder is a setting of a poem by Whitacre's frequent collaborator, Charles Anthony Silvestri, that reflects on the death of his wife. Whitacre says the piece depicts "the moment after this soul has died and passed to the other side." In addition to sharing imagery with Lux Aeterna, compositionally Whitacre aimed for Child of Wonder to share Lauridsen's desire to "get to the heart immediately in the music, without pretense, without needing to be dressed up."

Iri da iri by Esa-Pekka Salonen, commissioned from the LA Philharmonic's Conductor Laureate by the Master Chorale singers for the Chorale's 50th anniversary and premiered by the ensemble in 2014, and Heavenly Home: Three American Songs a triptych of traditional Sacred Harp songs arranged by Shawn Kirchner-the Master Chorale's composer-in-residence 2012-15-that was premiered in 2010, complete the celebratory program.

"It's impossible to overstate the impact that Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna has had on choral music worldwide," said Gershon. "Twenty years ago, the premiere of this transcendent work by the Los Angeles Master Chorale under my predecessor Paul Salamunovich announced that we are in the midst of a global choral renaissance. With these concerts in June, the Master Chorale is vividly extending that legacy by pairing the Lux Aeterna with five astonishingly beautiful works written for the Master Chorale by some of today's most visionary composers-all of whom are based in Los Angeles. Each of these a cappella works links with Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna by exploring related themes of Light, Gratitude, and Eternity."

THREE DAYS OF CONCERT PERFORMANCES & SPECIAL EVENTS:

CONCERT

The Lux Aeterna 20th Anniversary celebration begins with a matinee performance on Saturday, June 17 at 2 PM. This concert will be preceded by a ListenUp! talk in BP Hall at 1 PM with Grant Gershon and Morten Lauridsen hosted by Alan Chapman that is free to all ticket-holders.

CONCERT + GALA + LUX ONSTAGE PARTY

On Sunday, June 18 there will be a special gala performance at 6 PM including a tribute to Lauridsen during the concert. The gala evening includes a pre-concert cocktail reception in the Blue Ribbon Garden at Walt Disney Concert Hall and a gourmet post-concert dinner by Patina held in BP Hall. The Los Angeles Master Chorale's primary fundraising event supporting its artistic and education programs, the gala also includes a silent auction, live auction, and the Master Chorale's signature "Surround Sing" performance.

The festive evening on June 18 also includes a Lux Onstage Party ticket that includes a seat at the concert and VIP access to a post-concert party held on the Walt Disney Concert Hall stage presented in partnership with KCRW and hosted by Eric Whitacre and KCRW host Chris Douridas.

Tickets for this evening are available at tiered levels: $100 (concert), $250 (concert + Lux Onstage Party), and $750 & up (concert + gala events). All guests will enjoy celebratory champagne at intermission and a commemorative gift honoring the 20th anniversary of Lux Aeterna.

CONCERT + GROUP SING

A third performance of the Lux Aeterna 20th Anniversaryconcert program will take place during Chorus America's annual conference that is being held in Los Angeles June 21-24 and hosted by the Los Angeles Master Chorale. On Thursday, June 22 at 8 PM the Los Angeles Master Chorale will present a special "Choir Night" performance that includes a pre-concert group-sing for audience members led by Artist-in-Residence Eric Whitacre and singer/composer Moira Smiley at 7 PM. All ticket-holders for this concert are invited to take part in the group-singing event held in Disney Hall.

ABOUT LUX AETERNA

Lux Aeterna was commissioned by the Board of Governors of The Music Center of which the Los Angeles Master Chorale is a resident company. Lauridsen dedicated the piece to the Master Chorale and Salamunovich. Composed the year his mother died-and during the seven-year period he was the Master Chorale's composer-in-residence-the five movements of Lux Aeterna are based on various references to light from sacred Latin texts. The imagery of light provides the spiritual focus for what the composer has described as "an intimate work of quiet serenity centered around a universal symbol of hope, reassurance, goodness, and illumination at all levels."

The Los Angeles Master Chorale's 20th anniversary performances mark the first time it will perform Lux Aeterna with a full orchestra in Walt Disney Concert Hall. There are two versions of Lux Aeterna, one for choir and orchestra, and one for choir and organ. Todd Vunderink, Director of Peermusic Classical, the publisher of Lux Aeterna, estimates that the version with full orchestra is performed around 50 times each year in the United States and around 75 times worldwide. He said it was harder to track performances of the organ version as this music is purchased by schools, churches, and other non-professional choirs. He estimates that around 7,000 copies of this score are sold in the U.S. each year and around 8,000 worldwide, making it one of the company's best-selling scores, a status it has held since it was first released.

LUX AETERNA 20TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT PROGRAM:

BILLY CHILDS | In Gratitude (World Premiere)

ESA-PEKKA SALONEN | Iri da iri

SHAWN KIRCHNER | Heavenly Home: Three American Songs

Eric Whitacre | Child of Wonder (U.S. Premiere)

Eric Whitacre, guest conductor

MOIRA SMILEY | Time In Our Voices (World Premiere)

Intermission

MORTEN LAURIDSEN | Lux Aeterna

Grant Gershon, conductor

Eric Whitacre, guest conductor

115 singers

Orchestra

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