Community Chorus of Culiacán

“Anyone who doesn’t like music shouldn’t be trusted.”
—paraphrase of Shakespeare’s sonata

Do you love the poetry of William Shakespeare and Robert Frost? And what about choral music? There are few feelings that parallel the sound of a hundred voices lifted in song… The seventh event in this year’s Camerata Gordon Campbell series will showcase Maestro’s Campbell’s two favorite choral pieces.

Shakespeare actually has a poem called “Serenade to Music,” (from The Merchant of Venice) which was actually set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), perhaps England’s greatest modern composer. He composed nine symphonies and five operas, plus a lot of choral music. Of particular interest to me is that he traveled the English countryside at the turn of the 20th century to collect folk songs and carols, thus saving them for future generations. He also wrote hymns. His ashes are interred in Westminster Abbey near Purcell’s.

Randall Thompson, composer (1899-1994) of three symphonies and two string quartets, also wrote choral music his entire life—including the famous Allelujia, which premiered at Tanglewood (the Boston Symphony’s summer home) in 1940, and has opened each Tanglewood season ever since. Interesting trivia: Thompson was turned down when auditioning for the Harvard Glee Club as an undergrad.

Bringing to life the poetry of Frost and Shakespeare, and the musical compositions of Williams and Thompson, will be the Community Chorus of Culiacán, this Sunday, February 22nd, at noon in the Angela Peralta Theater. This is the second to the last performance in this year’s .

In our latest entry in the “Behind the Chamber” series, Maestro Gordon Campbell and his wife, Guianeya Román, share with us how their wedding served as indirect inspiration for this upcoming performance.

Tickets to this event are for sale at the unbelievable price of 200 pesos each at the TAP box office or online.