Seraphic Fire to offer Bach, Orff, Copland and more Enlightenment in 2020-21 season

By Lawrence Budmen

Aaron Copland’s Old American Songs and In the Beginning will be performed by Seraphic Fire in the 2020-21 season. Phoro: Gordon Parks

Seraphic Fire’s 2020-2021 season will offer programs devoted to French impressionism and the Americana of Aaron Copland, a performance of Carl Orff’s blockbuster Carmina Burana, and a second Enlightenment Festival, along with the premieres of three new works.

Artistic director Patrick Dupré Quigley directs the season’s opening program November 6-10, which will focus on Spanish Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria and his relationship with Holy Roman Empress Maria of Spain. Victoria’s Requiem, written on the occasion of Maria’s death, will be paired with motets by Thomas Crequillon, Nicolas Gombert, Pierre Marchicourt and Philippe Rogier. Associate conductor James K. Bass conducts the popular Seraphic Fire Christmas program with seven performances December 8-18.

Quigley returns for a January 21-24 program centered on the vocal music of Copland, which will spotlight his two sets of Old American Songs and In the Beginning with mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski as soloist. The world premieres of Beloved of the Sky by Canadian composer Tawnie Olson and Danzas del Silencio by Alvaro Bermudez will also be presented.

The Enlightenment Festival returns February 18-28, this time  focused on the works of Claudio Monteverdi and J.S. Bach. Ten concerts will be presented over two weeks. On February 18-21 Quigley leads motets by Monteverdi and Heinrich Schutz. Monteverdi’s dramatic Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and Schutz’s Musikalische Exequien will be the featured scores. Bach’s rarely heard Ascension Oratorio concludes the festival February 25-28 on a program with Quigley also conducting two Bach cantatas. Chamber concerts will further explore lesser known composer of the Baroque era.

Bass leads a concert of impressionist works by Debussy and Ravel March 17-21. Solo chansons, piano miniatures, choral works and harp music encompass the varied program. Quigley concludes the season April 22-25 with Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana in collaboration with The Percussion Collective, a recently formed ensemble. The premiere of a new work by Emmy winning composer Garth Neustadter completes the program.

Concerts will be presented at venues in Miami, Coral Gables, Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton and Naples. 

Subscriptions for the 2020-2021 Season go on sale to the general public on April 3. seraphicfire.org; 305-285-9060. 

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