Tender longing, passionate love, heartbreaking loss: emotions existing in the human experience. The IBCS Chamber Singers will explore these deeply felt emotions through a concert of choir music, “Music and Sweet Poetry,” on Monday, March 24, at 7:00 p.m. in the Tri-City Baptist Church lobby.
“If you enjoy choral music, you will love this concert,” says Pastor Dave Stertzbach, director of the singers. “It is not a program with instruments and narration. There are no stunts. It is just a concert of beautiful choral singing in our resonant performing space. For this concert, we will present profound poetic texts that explore longing, love, and loss.” Featured poets include Austrian Rainer Rilke, 16th c. Spanish poet Garcilaso de la Vega, French poet Jacques Prévert, modern American poets ee cummings and Sara Teasdale, and, of course, William Shakespeare. These world-famous poems are set to world-class music by composers Duruflé, Lauridsen, Esenvalds, Stroope, Rutter, and others.
Stertzbach on the concert: “But even more than just some love songs (gorgeous though they are!), this concert explores the wedding of text and tune. The title song talks about ‘when music and sweet poetry agree.’ Folks can come just to hear the singing and maybe shed a tear at happy memories. Or they can come to experience a masterclass in music composition—writing music that reinforces the words. All in just about an hour.”