Season 26 | 2019

Friday | 22 February 2019 | 8pm  

St Stephen's Episcopal Church  

4805 Northeast 45th Street | Seattle

Saturday | 23 February 2019 | 8pm  

Holy Rosary Catholic Church  

4139 42nd Avenue Southwest | West Seattle

Sunday | 24 February 2019 | 7pm 

Christ Episcopal Church 

310 North K Street | Tacoma

On the weekend after Valentine’s Day, our society’s celebration of romantic love, The Esoterics explored VULNERABILITY, the capacity for openness, by tracing the emotional journey of lowering of one’s defenses, from expressing desire and devotion, challenging authority and conformity, risking injury, gaining consent, healing from brokenness, navigating through resentfulness, arriving at forgiveness, and emerging again into the world, ready to be vulnerable yet again.

This concert repertoire included texts by James Baldwin, Olympe de Gouges, Bei Dao, Paul Laurence Dunbar, e. e. cummings, Hāfez, Jennifer Powers, Rainier Maria Rilke, Rabindranath Tagore, and William Carlos Williams.

For this concert series, The Esoterics welcomed instrumentalists Willie Braun (violoncello) and Dallas Neustel (clarinet).

CONCERT REPERTOIRE:  

Apelsinen har mognat [The oranges are ripe] (2001)

by Tebogo Monnakgotla  

Celestial bird (2013)

by Roxanna Panufnik  

Consent (2014)

by Ted Hearne  

I carry your heart with me (2003)  

by Abbie Betinis   

I flow… I am (2016)

by Mari Ésabel Valverde  

Invitation to love (2016)

by Jennifer Higdon  

Manifesto (2015)  

by David Lang  

Paradise (2017)  

by Evan Flory-Barnes  

The rewaking (2005)  

by Augusta Read Thomas  

The rights of woman, from Speeches (2016)  

by Anna-Karin Klockar  

This song, I sing (2018) 

world premiere commission 

by Philip Wharton 

Two songs of Hafez (2018)

  Even after all this time...

  When the violin...

by Reena Esmail

Friday | 17 May 2019 | 8pm   

St Stephen's Episcopal Church   

4805 Northeast 45th Street | Seattle  

Saturday | 18 May 2019 | 8pm   

Holy Rosary Catholic Church   

4139 42nd Avenue Southwest | West Seattle  

Sunday | 19 May 2019 | 7pm  

Christ Episcopal Church  

310 North K Street | Tacoma 

In the second program of its season, The Esoterics unveiled the potential power of human togetherness, INCLUSIVITY. This program traced the origins of “otherness” in our first moments of life and explore how these emotions develop into exclusion at both the interpersonal and societal levels, resulting in divisiveness, xenophobia, shunning, persecution, violence, and the loneliness and wandering of exile. This program will also advocate for philoxenia – the desire to show hospitality and acceptance of strangers – which promotes the idea that we are stronger together, as an interdependent human community.  

This concert repertoire included texts by Chairil Anwar, José María Arguedas, Li Ba, e. e. cummings, Vivian Eden, Bai Ju-Yi, Amy Beth Kirsten, Salman Masalha, Li Shang-Yin, Donald Woods Winnicott, Malala Yousafzai, Xu Yuan-Zhong, and Chen Zi-Ang.

CONCERT REPERTOIRE:  

Doa [A prayer] (2014) 

by Marisa Sharon Hartanto

Hombre errante [The wandering man] (2002) 

  Invocatión

  Jakakllito

  Dos palomas

  Responsorio serrano

  Despedida

by Gabriela Lena Frank

!hope (2017) 

by Augusta Read Thomas

Know the rules (2019) 

by Eric Banks

Make peace (2016) 

by David Lang

Mother of exiles (2018) 

by Kala Pierson

November prayer, from Messages to myself (2007) 

by Christopher Theofanidis  

The song about the child (2015) 

by Sivan Eldar  

Tang poems (1995) 

  Leaving at dawn

  Written on a rainy night

  Wild grasses

  Monologue

by Chen Yi 

Together (2012) 

by Melissa Dunphy 

Two Chinese folksongs (2003) 

  A single bamboo can easily bend

  A horseherd's mountain song

by Chen Yi

What it might say (2015) 

by Ted Hearne 

Saturday | 14 September 2019 | 8pm 

St James Cathedral

804 9th Avenue | Seattle

In the third program of this concert season, The Esoterics celebrated the life and work of two Scandinavian choral musicians who were born eight days apart: the Norwegian composer JOHAN KVANDAL (8 September), and the Swedish composer SVEN-ERIK BÄCK (16 September). 

Johan Kvandal was the son of a composer who frequented artist colonies in his youth and studied with Nadia Boulanger at the Conservatoire de Paris. With strong influences from both Norwegian folk and international contemporary musics, Kvandal developed his own language, a “modern tonality,” and spoke out strongly again the prevailing avant garde.  Kvandal’s Swedish contemporary, Sven-Erik Bäck, after completing his studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Stockholm, traveled to Rome to study with Goffredo Petrassi, a leading teacher of European modernism. While Bäck’s choral music sets conservative Biblical texts, his compositional treatment of these verses was far from traditional. 

In this sacred program, The Esoterics performed all twelve of Sven-Erik Bäck’s Motetter för kyrkoåret [Motets for the church year] in Swedish, as well as all of Johan Kvandal’s sacred works for unaccompanied choir. This program was be a fascinating remembrance of these two choral composers, and their not-quite-parallel lives in choral music.

CONCERT REPERTOIRE:  

Balladen om freden (Priez pour paix) [The ballad of peace] (Op 72, 1987)

by Johan Kvandal 

Tre motetter [Three motets] (Op 35, 1963–1971)

Jeg er kommet som et lys [I have come like a light] (1963)

Og dette er dommen [And this is the verdict] (1971)

Sandelig, sandelig sier jeg deg [Truly, truly, I say to you] (1971)   

by Johan Kvandal 

Tolv motetter för kyrkoåret [Twelve motets for the church year] (1959-1970)

Bejden, och eder skall varda givet [Ask, and it will be given] (1961)

Den stund kommer [The time is coming] (1964)

Dessa äro de som komma [These are the ones who have come] (1961)

Han blev lydig intill döden [He was obedient unto death] (1959)

Icke kommer var och en [Not everyone will enter] (1963)

Jag är livets bröd [I am the bread of life] (1959)

Jesus, tänk på mig [Jesus, remember me] (1959)

Natten är framskriden [The night is nearly over] (1959)

Och ordet vart kött [And the word became flesh] (1960)

Se, vi gå upp till Jerusalem [Behold, we will go up to Jerusalem] (1959)

Utrannsaka mig [Investigate me] (1970)

Vaken för den skull [Awake, therefore] (1966)

by Sven-Erik Bäck 

Underet [The miracle] (Op 69, 1986)

by Johan Kvandal 

Våkn op, du som sover! [Awake, you who slumber!] (Op 13, 1950)

by Johan Kvandal

Friday | 18 October 2019 | 8pm  

St Barnabas Episcopal Church  

1187 Wyatt Way Northwest | Bainbridge Island 

Saturday | 19 October 2019 | 8pm  

Holy Rosary Catholic Church  

4139 42nd Avenue Southwest | Seattle

Sunday | 20 October 2019 | 3pm 

St John’s Episcopal Church 

114 20th Avenue Southeast | Olympia 

In the penultimate program of this concert season, The Esoterics considered the value and strength of sincerity, or HONESTY. This performance examined the fragility of our minds that are incessantly bombarded with information, opinion, and pointless words. It also encouraged us to find grounding and peace in accepting the truth, to calm our restless or idle minds, to exercise self-control from speaking deceitfully, to find comfort in the unanswered question, to expect and embrace unavoidable change, to free ourselves from hatred, fear, and blindness, and to place our trust in good thoughts, words, and deeds.  

Singing texts from a wide variety of sources, including: the ancient Greek Aethonians, the Dhammapada, the Tao te ching, and Psalm 34, this program featured texts by the writers Brandon Elliott, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Kathleen Raine, William Shakespeare, Rabindranath Tagore, Euan Tait, and George Graham Vest

This program also included four world premiere commissions our 2018 POLYPHONOS winners: David

Ho-yi Chan, Katherine Pukinskis, and Scott Senko, as well as a brand-new piece by Michael Bussewitz

Quarm.  

CONCERT REPERTOIRE:  

The best friend, from Speeches (2016) 

by Anna-Karin Klockar  

Change (2008) 

by Samantha Fernando  

A choice informed (2019) 

world premiere commission 

by Katherine Pukinskis  

Fervor (2018) 

by Ted Hearne

The gentlest thing (2001) 

by Trevor Weston  

God of Owls (2004) 

by Abbie Betinis 

Guard my tongue (2009) 

by Julia Wolfe

Hymn to Aethon (2015) 

by Fahad Siadat 

Jasmine arrow music (2009) 

  Thousands

  Freedom

  Arrow

  Jasmine

  Peace

by Forrest Pierce  

Perhaps (2017)  

by Dale Trumbore  

So it was I (2019) 

world premiere commission 

by Michael Bussewitz-Quarm 

This great wall (2019)

world premiere commission 

by Scott Senko  

Truth and lie: When my love swears (2019)

world premiere commission

by David Ho-yi Chan 

Friday | 13 December 2019 | 8pm 

St Stephen's Episcopal Church 

4805 Northeast 45th Street | Seattle    

Saturday | 14 December 2019 | 8pm 

Holy Rosary Catholic Church 

4139 42nd Avenue Southwest | West Seattle 

Sunday | 15 December 2019 | 7pm 

Christ Episcopal Church 

310 North K Street | Tacoma  

In the final program of this concert season, The Esoterics articulated our common desire for emotional simplicity, or HUMILITY. This performance  considered the origins of lowliness as a result of humiliation or hiding, surrender or sorrow, generosity or gratitude. It also examined the various different contexts in which we find ourselves humble: while tenderly in love, while patiently or hopefully in need, while meekly witnessing the majesty of nature.  

Giving voice to verses from the Bible (John and Galatians), a Mohawk prayer, a speech by Chief Joseph (Hinmuuttu Yalatlat) of the Nez Perce, this program also featured poems of modesty, empathy, restraint, and respect by Pablo Antonio Cuadra, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Annie Finch, Amy Fleury, Gary Snyder, and Dylan Thomas.

CONCERT REPERTOIRE:  

A los pescadores [To the fishermen] (2015) 

by Gabriela Lena Frank 

All we need (2015) 

by Dale Trumbore

Fruit of my spirit (2004) 

by Augusta Read Thomas

Gratitude sutra (2013)

by Forrest Pierce

O God, thy sea is so great (2017)

by Sarah Rimkus  

Songs of lowly life (2011) 

  Dawn 

  Life   

  Not they who soar

  Lullaby 

  Old 

by Stacy Garrop 

Spiritus mundi [The spirit of the world] (2016) 

by Dale Trumbore

Surrender speech, from Speeches (2016) 

by Anna-Karin Klockar 

We walked through the trees (2014) 

by Sarah Rimkus 

We were once strangers (2018)

world premiere commission

by Sarah Riskind