For Immediate Release: January 8, 2009

The Esoterics announces its 2009 season‏

Concerts explores different facets of the human experience, with world premieres from The Esoterics' POLYPHONOS composition competition as well as four NEA-funded commissions

PLUS! The Esoterics announces the release of RU'IA, American choral CD inspired entirely by Islamic scripture and poetry.

SEATTLE — As the promise of change approaches, The Esoterics proudly presents its 2009 season, featuring concerts inspired by the sincerest forms of communication: promising love, honoring those departed, conveying a secret, reviving memories, and offering up prayer. The repertoire provides an enriching audience experience, with strong, emotional contrasts and diverse subject matter.

"I think that the 2009 season may be one of our most expressive and emotional," says Founding Director Eric Banks. "Our focus will be engaging with the audience and inviting them to contemplate our shared humanity. I think that in a cappella choral music, because the only instrument involved is the human voice, there is a great potential to reflect upon how we communicate with ourselves, those closest to us, and the world at large."

World premieres abound throughout the year. Commissions from The Esoterics' POLYPHONOS competition (http://www.theesoterics.org/polyphonos/Default.aspx) will appear in the October concert, MYSTERIUM, alongside an NEA-funded work by The Esoterics' composer-in-residence, Don Skirvin. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has also provided funding for works by three other composers:
• New York composer Martha Sullivan -- featured in VOTIVITA, the group's February concert;
• the Bay Area's Paul Crabtree -- to be premiered in April's MEMORIAM; and
• Founding Director Eric Banks -- to be performed by The Esoterics' all-male counterpart group, ÆDONIS, in August's SUSCITA.

Please join The Esoterics in 2009 for its sixteenth season – details below.

VOTIVITA: Promising love and life to one another ~ 7 8 14 15 February
In these times, when controversies over marriage provoke conflict and hatred, The Esoterics will celebrate Valentine's Day by celebrating the dimensions of love that are common to all humanity. Sensual verses of love poetry from the Old Testament's Song of Songs, provide a common, lusty thread to the repertoire of VOTIVITA. In these verses in French, Swedish, and Hebrew, images from the first flush of love are juxtaposed with a more profound look at what is found at the heart of a marriage: the promise of a shared life together. To complete the conjugal theme of this program, The Esoterics will premiere Martha Sullivan's Epithalamion, five odes by Edmund Spenser, inspired by the wedding vow – Time, Nocturne, Banishment, Silence, and Blessing.

MEMORIAM: Honoring the memory of those lost in tragedy ~ 18 19 25 26 April
When tragedy strikes, the human voice raised in song plays a unique role, in that it offers comfort to those in grief. In MEMORIAM, The Esoterics explores the power of a cappella choral music to give voice to the unspeakable. Six compositions written in the last decade reflect many facets of the choral art as memorial: honoring those who risked their lives for social justice; questioning the inexplicable loss of the innocent; and remembering historical moments of loss. With a combination of contemporary reportage and literary texts, the music of MEMORIAM portrays not only the helplessness of sorrow, but also the inspiration of courage, the hope of healing, and the shock of human kindness.

CONSTANTINESCU: Paul Constantinescu Centennial ~ 20 21 27 28 June
Virtually unknown to audiences in America, Paul Constantinescu (1909-1963) was one of Romania's most distinguished and cherished composers. A master of orchestral and vocal genres, Constantinescu was foremost among the generation of artists that breathed a new nationalism into Romanian classical music, as he infused the demands of Western counterpoint with the eccentricities of his native folksong. Constantinescu's blending of sacred, poetic, and folk influences is demonstrated in his diverse output choral works, from which The Esoterics will perform all of his compositions for a cappella voices – his orthodox liturgy, ten folksong settings, and four madrigals. Please join The Esoterics to celebrate the life and work of Paul Constantinescu at his centenary.

SUSCITA: Reviving the past to reflect upon its beauty ~ 15 16 22 23 August
In SUSCITA, The Esoterics' all-male counterpart Ædonis will perform settings of poetry that recalls the past and reveals the poignant difference between the actual experience and the reconstructed memory. The centerpiece of the concert will be founding director Eric Banks' choral cycle on poems by the Alexandrian poet Constantine Cavafy. In Cavafy's portraits of his former loves, his brief encounters are transformed into images of mythological beauty. Ædonis will also revive the memory of poet and departed friend Gordon Abshire with Donald Skirvin's Awakening, a triptych of Abshire's poems, and will premiere Armon, a setting of verses by the 8th-century Sufi mystic Rabi'a al Adawiyya by New York composer Eve Beglarian.

MYSTERIUM: Uncovering secrets of this life and the next ~ 10 11 17 18 October
As summer's radiance yields to the gloom of winter, the secrets of known and unknown worlds emerge. MYSTERIUM will depict this autumnal reflection, as The Esoterics will premiere the longest and largest choral work to date by its composer-in-residence, Donald Skirvin. Skirvin's eight-movement cycle sets poems by Sara Teasdale, in which the poet uses images from the changing seasons to unlock the mysteries of love. In addition to Skirvin's choral symphony, the ensemble is excited to premiere three new commissions by the winners of this year's POLYPHONOS competition: Chicago composer Shawn Allison, Filipino composer Nilo Alcala, and Argentinean composer Eduardo Malachevsky.

CHIAROSCURA: Meditating on the cusp of light and darkness ~ 5 6 12 13 December
In painting, CHIAROSCURA refers to the contrast between light and darkness, and how shadows intensify luminosity. The Esoterics will portray the drama of CHIAROSCURA in spectacular and profound works from the choral repertoire – by the master composers Strauss, Schnittke, and Joubert. Each of these pieces sets verses from a prayer, litany, or meditation (by the likes of Friedrich Rückert and St Augustine), and reflects how various forms of light and dark -- good and evil, known and unknown, truth and falsehood -- are at once highly contrasting and inextricably interdependent. The resulting concert will be both moving and dramatic, bringing choral fireworks to the conclusion of The Esoterics' sixteenth season.

How to Purchase Season Subscriptions: Season subscriptions are available now for $75 along with single tickets priced from $10-$20. Venues and times vary. For further information, please visit www.theesoterics.org.

EXTRA! The Esoterics proudly presents RU'IA, its ninth CD recording. Titled with an Arabic word meaning "dreams" or "visions," this is the first American choral CD inspired entirely by Islamic scripture and poetry. The repertoire includes: Mombasa matatu meditation by Vancouver composer Hussein Janmohamed – a choral cityscape wherein Muslim chant emerges from the morning din of urban Kenya; Bern Herbolsheimer's Kader kiç [The night of destiny] – a setting of verses by Tatar poet Gabdulla Tukai about the holiest night in Ramadan; and the Islamic-inspired Prière by Dutch composer Ton de Leeuw. The centerpiece of this recording is a 50-minute a cappella choral dreamscape by The Esoterics' founder Eric Banks entitled Twelve Qur'anic visions. Inspired by Banks' travel and study in India and Indonesia, this work unveils the essence of Muslim faith, including visions of the creation, the beauty of nature, the wisdom of the prophets, the afterlife in Hell and Paradise, the injustice of aggression, and the path to peace. Banks was strongly motivated to write and record this piece to initiate listeners in the West to one of the most prevalent yet misunderstood religions in the world.

The Esoterics has presented dozens of local and international premieres and has tackled the most challenging works of 20th and 21st century choral repertoire. Now in its 16th season with founding director Eric Banks, the ensemble has drawn national and international praise for presenting the many styles that comprise contemporary choral music. The Esoterics' commitment to innovative concert repertoire has been nationally recognized four times (in 2001, 2003, 2006, and 2008) with the ASCAP and Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music. The ensemble was also honored to be selected as the only North American chorus to compete at the 2000 International Choral Festival in Cork, Ireland, the 2001 International Choral Festival in Tolosa, Spain, and the 2006 Harald Andersén International Choir Competition in Helsinki, Finland.

If you have additional questions about The Esoterics (media contact only), please contact Bayta Maring ()