Over the next 5 days, we count down to a new year and take a look back at 5 memorable moments from 2020.

This is a piece from our last pre-Covid concert back in January of 2020. And what a terrific piece it is, especially when performed by such a perfect group of musicians! The work is a classic: over a mostly continuous ground bass, Monteverdi weaves a never-ending banquet of melodic inventiveness, some passages simple and lovely, others extremely virtuosic. A member of our audience, John Wellmann, wrote such a kind note to us: “It is impossible for me to describe the amount of appreciation I feel for the daily choral moment you are providing during these challenging days. It is easily the thing I look forward to most in this time and each day I feel transported into another (better) world as I listen to the gorgeous selections. I listened to today's piece (Victoria's O quam gloriosum) three times just marveling at the purity of sound and feeling it sooth and reset my spirit. My request is Monteverdi's Beatus Vir. This piece is just the most charming, delightful thing to me, and I adored Voices of Ascension's sparkling performance of the piece in the Baroque concert earlier this year. Without realizing it, that concert was the last concert I attended before these days of social distancing, so that performance, and especially the marvelous Beatus Vir, are a sublime memory.” John, thank you so very much! I hope you enjoy hearing this again. – Dennis Keene

MONTEVERDI Beatus Vir

Voices of Ascension
Dennis Keene, Artistic Director

Molly Quinn and Nola Richardson, Sopranos
Daniel Moody, Countertenor
Brandon Hynum and Chad Kranak, Tenors
Paul An, Bass
Mitsuru Tsubota and Karl Kawahara, Violins
Daire Fitzgerald, Cello
Brian Cassier, Bass
Mark Kruczek, Organ

Live concert at Church of the Ascension, January 29, 2020
The singers in this performance are represented by the American Guild of Musical Artists, AFL-CIO.