FROM GUEST CURATOR MELISSA BYBEE

As a member of the Programming Committee for Voices of Ascension, my primary area of focus is new music. Besides helping the committee to identify potential composers and collaborators for Voices of the New, whose first offering, “Astronautica: Voices of Women in Space,” conceived by our own Hai-Ting Chinn, premiered online in January 2021, I also hope to introduce composers and pieces that might work for our core ensemble, Voices of Ascension. One such piece is James MacMillan’s “Cantos Sagrados” (Sacred Songs). I encountered this heart-wrenching work as a member (2011-2016) of the experimental group C4: The Choral Composer Conductors Collective. As the name implies, C4 is a collective of composers and conductors whose mission is to perform choral music written strictly within the past 25 years. Every member of the collective sings in the ensemble and a portion of each concert features pieces written by C4 members. “Cantos Sagrados” was a stretch as it was programmed for our 2015-2016 season and the piece was written in 1989 and premiered in 1990. The work, in three movements - I. Identity; II. Virgin of Guadalupe; and III: Sun Stone - combines poems by Ariel Dorfman and Ana Maria Mendosa on the subject of political repression in Latin America with texts from the traditional Latin Mass and features virtuosic organ accompaniment. The music, which combines agitated melodies and uncomfortable texts with sustained, crunchy harmonic meditations, creates a powerful and effective musical commentary on the horror of the “disappearances” that occurred under the Argentinian junta in the 1980s. Choral music, like any other music, shouldn’t always be easy on the ears. Sometimes, it should be tough, as tough can also be riveting, beautiful even, for both the performers and the audience, especially in the hands of skilled musicians. Movement I. Identity, well served in this performance by the University of Michigan Chamber Choir (2014) under the direction of Jerry Blackstone with organist, Scott Van Ornum, describes the discovery of a man found dead in a river who is so destroyed that even his own mother cannot identify him. The “Libera Me” that appears three-quarters of the way in after so much agitation and dissonance is painfully haunting and poignant. – Melissa Bybee, Voices of Ascension Alto and Board Member