New Dominion Chorale will begin its 27th season on Sunday, Oct. 29, at 4 p.m. at St. Luke Catholic Church (7001 Georgetown Pike, McLean).
The program, entitled “Songs Celestial,” will be conducted by Thomas Beveridge, Artistic Director, and will feature organist Paul Skevington, baritone James Shaffran and countertenor Chris Dudley. Other featured instrumentalists include flautist Karen Johnson, harpist Cecile Schoon, bassist Jeffrey Koczela and percussionist Manny Arciniega.
The concert will feature the premiere performance of Beveridge’s “Song of Celestial Love” with a text by the 19th-century Hindu saint, Sri Ramakrishna, for chorus and an unusual combination of instruments: alto flute, harp, bass viol and tabla (Indian drum).
Other works on the program: “Chichester Psalms” by Leonard Bernstein, “Five Mystical Songs” by Ralph Vaughn Williams, “Three Divine Hymns” by Sergei Rachmaninov, “Cantique de Jean Racine” by Gabriel Fauré, and Franz Schubert’s “Deutsche Messe.”
Dr. Skevington, now in his 25th season as the Minister of Music and Liturgy at St. Luke Church, will play Olivier Messiaen’s “Apparition de l’église éternelle” on the church’s 61-rank pipe organ.
The 200-voice New Dominion Chorale is one of the Washington area’s largest choral societies. Its performances have been praised in The Washington Post as “opulent, precise and powerful.” In addition to its performances at St. Luke Church, the Chorale performs regularly at the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center in Alexandria. The Chorale has also performed at the Washington National Cathedral, Washington Hebrew Congregation and the Concert Hall of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The Chorale has performed most of the standard works for large chorus and orchestra and has given the premiere performances of Thomas Beveridge’s works, including “Symphony of Peace” and “Yizkor Requiem,” which has received over 25 performances in the United States and Europe and has been recorded twice on the Naxos Label: by The Choral Arts Society of Washington and by The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.
