Excelsior

Guild looks onward and upward to the next twenty years

Baroque Choral Guild enters its "second generation" with a series of concerts that uphold the organization's reputation for ambitious and exciting programming.
The season's repertoire will include works from the renaissance and baroque periods as well as selections from the early and late twentieth century.

Gloria! The 20th anniversary concert

The Guild Chorus's twentieth anniversary observance will be a joyous baroque concert featuring works celebrating the "Gloria" text. The December program will open with a Gloria cum jubilo chant, an 18th century Gloria canon and a movement from Victoria's Missa O quam gloriosum.
Period instruments of Jubilate Orchestra will join the Guild Chorus for Cantata 191, Gloria in Excelsis, composed by J.S. Bach for Christmas Day, and the only one of his church cantatas set in Latin. The Guild and Jubilate will also perform the Monteverdi Gloria a sei voci and the Vivaldi Gloria.

A bouquet of chansons

For the Guild's March a cappella concert, Music Director Mitchell Covington has picked a spring bouquet of chansons, secular songs from the early 15th and 16th centuries with selected counterparts from this century.
The chorus will perform as a whole ensemble and in smaller groups works by Dufay, Des Prés, Arcadelt, Passereau, Janequin, Lassus, Debussy, Lauridsen and the ubiquitous Anon. For this concert the chorus will be polishing its French pronunciation to perform these pieces that were chosen to delight and enchant the listener.

From the depths to the heights

To conclude its 1999-2000 season the Guild will perform a program based on the "Out of the depths" theme from Psalm 130. The concert will feature J.S. Bach's Cantata 131, Aus der tiefe and Motet 5, Komm, Jesu, komm.
Also included on the program are a cappella settings of the psalm text by renaissance composers Des Prés, Lassus, Sweelinck and others; as well as orchestrated baroque works by Buxtehude and Vivaldi. The Guild Chorus will be joined by Jubilate Orchestra and a quartet of vocal soloists.

Season subscriptions and choir auditions

A subscription to the three 1999-2000 season concerts costs $36 (general) or $24 (student/senior). There is an order form inside, on page 3.
Concerts will be held in Palo Alto and in Berkeley. Saturday performances are at First United Methodist, Hamilton (at Webster) in Palo Alto. Sunday performances are at First Congregational, Dana (between Durant and Channing) in Berkeley.
Chorus rehearsals begin after Labor Day. Experienced singers who are interested in joining the Guild Chorus can phone the Guild office at 650.424.1410 to schedule an audition.

Volume 8, Issue 1

Baroque Choral Guild, 953 Industrial Ave. Ste 118, Palo Alto CA 94303, 650.424.1410