Season 32 | 2025
Concert art by David Gellman
ORBIT & ORACLE: A reimagining of ancient astronomical legends
Saturday | 8 March 2025 | 8pm
Plymouth United Church of Christ
1217 6th Avenue | Seattle
Sunday | 9 March 2025 | 7pm
Christ Episcopal Church
310 North K Street | Tacoma
In the first concert of its 32nd season, The Esoterics is excited to remount this project of astronomical proportion by German composer Michael Ostrzyga! Over the last decade and a half, Michael has composed and published a cappella choral works for each of the planets in our solar system – Mercurius, Venus, Mars, Iuppiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptunus – and arranged them into a cycle called Planets and gods. These pieces not only explore the astronomical and mythological aspects of each planet and the god or goddess for which they are named, they also examine where science and belief intersect. In this cycle, Ostrzyga’s music allows and invites the listener to create their own association with each planet or god(dess), drawing on whatever imagery they might remember, or knowledge they might have.
Planets and gods will be intertwined with a new series of miniatures, entitled Strange solar system bodies, a world premiere commissioned by The Esoterics. Each aphoristic piece of this new cycle focuses on a singular body in our solar system (dwarfs, moon, and asteroids), each of which sets itself apart in strikingly different ways. Some boast an obscure outer appearance, such as: the quickly-rotating and therefore oval-shaped dwarf-planet Haumea in the outer reaches; the potato-shaped asteroid Bennu, which passes dangerously close to Earth every six years; and Saturn’s moon Mimas, which, due to a gigantic crater in just the right spot, resembles a white version of the Star War’s "death star." Other bodies amaze in different ways, like the former dwarf-planet Pluto and its moon Charon, which form an eerie double-system with the center of gravity located outside of the former planet. Ostrzyga captures these features and mechanics of these “heavenly bodies” in a highly condensed manner, offering fascinating music almost entirely devoid of words.
The Esoterics had to postpone this program last October, and we are SO excited to perform this concert for you at long last. We hope you can join us for this fantastic concert!
CONCERT REPERTOIRE:
[All of the music in this program was composed by Michael Ostrzyga.]
Event horizon (2022)
Farout (2021)
Flight (2023)
Iuppiter (2007)
Mars (2022)
Mercurius (2010)
Neptunus (2018)
Saturn (2014)
Strange solar system bodies (2024, world premiere commission), including:
Bennu - Callisto - Enceladus - Halley's Comet - Haumea - Hyperion
Io - Mimas - Oumuamua - Pan & Atlas - Pluto & Charon - Titan
Uranus (2020)
Venus (2022)
Concert art by David Gellman
PROMISE & PROPHECY:
Sonnet, saga, soliloquy, and sorcery
Saturday | 17 May 2025 | 8pm
Plymouth United Church of Christ
1217 6th Avenue | Seattle
Sunday | 18 May 2025 | 7pm
Christ Episcopal Church
310 North K Street | Tacoma
In May, The Esoterics celebrated spring with the choral music of New York composer Martha Sullivan. A longtime friend of director Eric Banks, Sullivan is a founding soprano of C4 (The Choral Composer Conductor Collective) in Manhattan, and teaches music theory, musicianship, and composition at Rutgers University.
This concert featured Epithalamion, Martha’s setting of verses from Edmund Spenser’s wedding ode. Originally written to honor his bride Elizabeth, Spenser composed these 24 stanzas to depict each hour of their wedding day. For her composition, Sullivan chose five stanzas that focus on the delights and distractions of the wedding night. This cycle, which was commissioned and premiered by The Esoterics in 2009, is replete with the elegance of Elizabethan England.
Sullivan’s setting of Spenser was followed by two poems by Emily Dickinson - I shall keep singing and Put up my lute - which express both the desire to create and the frustration with indifference. This Dickinson diptych was followed by five settings of Shakespeare - of three soliloquies and two sonnets. In Shakespeare’s throat, we recall the song of Cloten’s “lark” from Cymbeline, Ophelia’s lament on the death of Hamlet, and wonder “Who is Sylvia?” alongside The two gentlemen of Verona. In her diptych Elements of distance, Martha sets Shakespeare’s double sonnet that employs the ancient elements in pairs - earth and water, air and fire - as metaphors for love, loss, and longing.
In the concert’s second part, The Esoterics performed songs of prognostication, a beacon, and fire-breathing beasts. In her Madrigals of Nostradamus, Martha rendered four French quatrains by the celebrated soothsayer that predict secret letters, bowing unicorns, embezzling nephews, haunted houses, and naked queens. This cycle will be followed by her setting of “The new Colossus” by Emma Lazarus - the same sonnet of welcome that is cast in bronze and mounted at the base of the Statue of Liberty.
To finish this program, The Esoterics premiered Sullivan’s six-movement cycle (of which two movements were composed this year) entitled Certain dragons. For this work, Martha penned a poem of her own and curated five others - by Keats, Sassoon, Yeats, Lazarus, and Longfellow - all on the theme of dragons. In this cycle of six songs we will celebrate the legendary creatures and their extraordinary nature: volatile, violent, and virtuous, fiery, fearless, and fierce.
We were so excited to welcome Martha to Seattle and Tacoma for the weekend of these concerts! Thank you for joining The Esoterics for this celebration of lavish literature and sumptuous singing!
CONCERT REPERTOIRE:
[All of the music in this program was composed by Martha Sullivan.]
Certain dragons (2025)
Elements of distance (2010)
Epithalamion (2009)
Lazarus (2017)
Madrigals of Nostradamus (2002)
Shakespeare's throat (2016)
Two Dickinson songs (2015)
Concert art by David Gellman
Concert art by David Gellman
FERVOR & FLIGHT:
The search for safe haven
Saturday | 11 Oct 2025 | 8pm
Plymouth United Church of Christ
1217 6th Avenue | Seattle
Sunday | 12 Oct 2025 | 7pm
Christ Episcopal Church
310 North K Street | Tacoma
This autumn, The Esoterics invites you to find courage and hope in dark times, connect with nature and our community, and reflect in a concert series with the choral music of Juhi Bansal. An Indian composer who was brought up in Hong Kong and now lives in Los Angeles, Juhi creates works that draw subtly upon each of these traditions (as well as those from around the world) and entwines them intricately with gestures from western classical music. Her music incorporates themes of cultural diversity, nature and the environment, strong feminine energy, and the immigrant experience.
Also an accomplished conductor and accompanist, Juhi has been awarded fellowships by the Douglas Moore Fund for American Opera, the Atlantic Music Center, the Seasons Music Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival, and the Pacific Music Festival, where she has premiered the work of other composers from the podium or at the piano. We are excited that Juhi will be joining us in Seattle and Tacoma to hear us perform and discuss these themes with the audience.
Our concert will begin with Bansal's setting of a poem by Khalil Gibran, Fear (becoming the ocean). In Gibran’s text, the personified river trembles with fear as it approaches the vast ocean. Beneath a duet of Hindustani-style soprano soloists, the chorus assumes the role of the water and embraces the inevitable - not disappearing, but transforming - to abandon its individual identity and become part of a larger whole, the ocean. Change is prefaced by hesitation about the unknown, and requires great hope and courage.
Inspired by images from Inuit legend, Bansal’s Aurora employs kulning - a singing style of ancient Scandinavian shepherds - to evoke the landscape of the frosty north. Setting a text of her own, Juhi refers to the spirits of the heavens, who dance and play as they lead us with colorful torches on our way.
Bansal’s In perfect light sets verses from The old astronomer by the poet Sarah Williams. This text is a short study of contrasts - rising and setting, light and darkness, love and fear - and is set in a homophonic, hymn-like style. In the final moments of this work, the glowing descant of a soprano solo over the chorus embodies the steadfast certainty of a star.
The Esoterics will be joined by our percussionist friend James Doyle to present Bansal's Language of the earth. This theatrical work grew from conversions between Juhi and Trevor Shaw, the director of Inversion, the ensemble that commissioned the piece. In three movements - War, Storm, and Echoes - Bansal employs extended vocal and choral techniques to pose the question: what would the earth say? If it had a voice that we could hear, how would the world respond to our exploitation, our carelessness, our destruction? How would it remind us that humanity’s relationship to the natural world is inextricable? How would it warn us of the consequences? How would the earth give us hope and inspire us to change?
For Absence, Bansal translated a Moorish text by the 12th-century Andalusian philosopher Abu Bakr al-Turtushi into English. Over his lifetime, Al-Tartushi was able to travel a vast distance: from Spain, across North Africa, and through the Middle East, as far as Baghdad. Wanderlust is matched only by wistfulness in his poem, for as Al-Tartushi travels, he searches in every corner for a trace of his beloved - a scent, a sign, a shared star.
The Esoterics will close FERVOR & FLIGHT with We came searching for a home, a brand-new five-movement work commissioned by The Thirteen, a professional ensemble in Washington DC. In her choice of texts from the Ellis Island and Angel Island Archives - as well as fragments by Chief Standing Bear, Khalil Gibran, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth - Juhi sought elements that are common to the various stories of immigration to this country. She included accounts of terrifying journeys to the New World, speeches from First Nations people, as well as poems and graffiti from the walls of detention centers, ending her cycle with Emma Lazarus’ The new Colossus, the poem that is engraved at the base of the Statue of Liberty.
There is one dramatic detail about We came searching for a home that must be noted. While Juhi was in the final stages of this composition, she was forced to flee her home in Los Angeles. The Palisades Fire destroyed her entire home, and nearly all of her worldly possessions, including the first version of this score, still in manuscript. In the following weeks, while searching for her own home, Juhi recreated this entire score from memory in order to meet her commission deadline, which was earlier this year.
We are thrilled to welcome Juhi to Seattle and Tacoma for the weekend of these concerts! Please join The Esoterics for this exploration of hope and healing, trial and transformation!
CONCERT REPERTOIRE:
[All of the music in this program was composed by Juhi Bansal.]
Absence (2018)
Aurora (2022)
Fear (becoming the ocean) (2023)
In perfect light (2019)
Language of the earth (2024)
We came searching for a home (2025)
BEASTS & BEAUTIES:
Creation, compassion, critters, and creeds
Saturday | 13 Dec 2025 | 8pm
Plymouth United Church of Christ
1217 6th Avenue | Seattle
Sunday | 14 Dec 2025 | 7pm
Christ Episcopal Church
310 North K Street | Tacoma
This December, at the close of our 32nd concert season, The Esoterics invites you to join us as we present a concert “in triplicate” – three smaller ensembles coming together as one to present the choral music of the fascinating French composer Philippe Bodin. Inspired by such disparate sources as the sacred Roman rite, the idiosyncrasies of the animal world, and environmental phenomena, Bodin has created works that flirt with the boundaries of singing technique, and redefine how rhythm, meter, language, and physical space are employed in choral music.
A student of architecture, piano, and organ, as well as a professional baritone, Philippe has a doctorate in composition from Yale University. Highly lauded in his compositional career, as both a Guggenheim fellow and a laureate of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Bodin’s music has won awards from the American Composers Orchestra, Barlow Endowment, Aaron Copland Fund, Jerome Foundation, American Composers Forum, and the American Music Center. He has also held composer residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, and Banff, and has won prizes for his work in Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, and the United Kingdom.
Our concert will begin with Bodin’s Motet in praise of St Martin. Composed to honor the patron saint of France, Martin of Tours (316-397 CE), who served in the Roman cavalry in Gaul, but left military service to establish a monastery in southern France. Martin is best known for using his soldier’s sword to split his winter cloak, half of which he gave to a beggar who was freezing in the cold. During his life, Martin also performed miracles: casting out demons, healing the sick, and raising the dead. Several of these events are not only referred to in the ancient Latin of this Motet, but also in the musical detail of Bodin’s setting.
Inspired by the ancient Roman rite and commissioned by the Choir of Radio-France, Philippe’s Missa brevissima was originally composed in 2014 with five movements (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei), but several of these have been revised for this performance by The Esoterics. All of the first half of this concert (including the motet and Bodin’s bestiary) will be sung by smaller ensembles, semi-choruses within The Esoterics. Some of the aspects to listen for in Bodin’s Missa include the alternation of modal, tonal, and nontonal idioms, the fragmentation of text among the choral voices, the canonic imitation of melodies, and the construction of extraordinary harmonies from sustaining all of the pitches in a melodic line. It’s hard to believe that the separate movements of this innovative work were written by the same composer!
The first half of this concert will conclude with the five movements of Bodin’s Bizarre bestiary, originally composed in 2014, but revised to its current form earlier this year. Setting five poems from the collection Les animaux de personne by Jacques Roubaud, Philippe composed individual movements entitled: La gerboise (The jerboa, a small desert rodent related to the gerbil), Le lièvre variable (The mountain hare, which changes its color in each of the seasons), Le couscous tacheté (The spotted cuscus, a tree-dwelling marsupial native to the rainforests of Micronesia), Le dugong (The sea-cow, a large, shy marine mammal with flippers and a whale-like tail, a cousin of the manatee), and Le mouton à grosses fesses (The fat-tailed sheep, a common breed of sheep with ample hind quarters, well adapted to surviving in the desert).
In Bodin’s bestiary, the composer plays with the poetic personification of each animal. The jerboa awakes to enjoy a succulent breakfast and grabs her bookbag before running out the door for school. The quivering hare sleeps with one eye open, chomps on the clover, leaps through the lettuce, and hides from the hunter, changing color - from silver to red, from brown to white – throughout the seasons. The red-eyed cuscus hooks his tail to a branch deep in the Indonesian rainforest and silently enjoys the low-hanging fruit while wiggling his haunches. The lazy sea-cow reclines at the bottom of Indian Ocean, munching on algae until he realizes that his food supply is gone, lets out a plaintive moan, and must move on to another locale. In Philippe’s final movement, the fat-tailed sheep suffers from a variety of setbacks, including questionable fashion choices, a sweltering office environment, falling off the wagon from his diet, and rejection by his love interest at the night club. This hilarious collection of poems is expertly and uniquely set by Bodin, and shouldn’t be missed!
In the second half of this concert, the three semi-choruses that performed in the first half will combine to present Anges nus. The title of this triple-chorus piece refers to the motion of clouds in the sky.; it doesn't set a specific text, but rather, syllables in antiphony. This work, inspired by “environmental” phenomena were composed for the Choir of Radio-France, and was significantly revised since its original creation. The Esoterics is excited to bring this world premiere to life!
For the finale of this performance, we will present Philippe’s Fleurs d’artifice. Winner of the International Choral Competition in Espoo, Finland in 2018, this piece sets a Latin poem by the composer that describes the fleeting arrival and departure of the Northern lights. For this piece, The Esoterics are so happy to welcome back cellist Willie Braun, who will accompany the ensemble with the dramatic leaps, soaring lines, and haunting harmonics of Bodin’s award-winning homage to the aurora borealis.
We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Philippe to Seattle and Tacoma for the weekend of these concerts! (It is also the weekend of his birthday, so there will undoubtedly be a party!) Please join The Esoterics for this joyful celebration of creation, compassion, critters, and creeds.
CONCERT REPERTOIRE:
[All of the music in this program was composed by Philippe Bodin.]
Anges nus [Naked angels] (2019/2023)
Bizarre bestiaire [A bizarre bestiary] (2025)
Fleurs d’artifice [Fireworks] (2018/2024)
Missa brevissima (2014/2025)
Motetus in laudi Sancti Martini (1996/2025)