The Elgin Symphony Orchestra’s next concert will feature something not usually part of its ensemble — voices.
Four soloists, as well as Chicago-based The Adrian Dunn Singers, will join the orchestra for its “Mozart Requiem” concert at 7:30 p.m. March 5 and 3 p.m. March 6 at the Hemmens Cultural Center in Elgin.
“Working with singers is incredibly healthy for any orchestra — it encourages an entirely different approach,” said guest conductor Matthew Halls. “The instrumentalists have to think about text in order to accompany well and generally listen much more sensitively to what the soloist/chorus is doing, usually quite spontaneously.”
It’s somewhat similar to accompanying a concerto soloist.
“But the added dimension of words changes things up for the orchestra a whole lot,” Halls said.
The concert opens with English Renaissance composer Thomas Tallis’s 1567 hymn “Why fum’th in fight,” featuring soprano Amanda Forsythe, mezzo-soprano Amanda Crider, tenor James Reese and bass-baritone Jonathan Woody.
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with a couple of the solo singers before, but I’m meeting the other soloists and the chorus for the first time, which is always exciting,” Halls said.
The program continues with English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams’s 1910 “Fantasia on Theme by Thomas Tallis,” followed by The Adrian Dunn Singers joining the orchestra and soloists for Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 1791 “Requiem.”
“In putting together this program, we settled upon a pair of works that are both known first and foremost for their sheer beauty,” Halls said. “Both the Vaughan Williams ‘Fantasia’ and the famous Mozart ‘Requiem’ are inspired compositions whose timeless and otherworldly qualities never fail to have a profound effect on audiences the world over.”
The two works stem from completely different epochs — Mozart writing on his deathbed in the late 18th century and Vaughan Williams in the first decade of the 20th century.
“The former, a highly eccentric and prolific composer who left us a remarkable — some would argue unparalleled — corpus of works covering pretty much every classical genre,” Halls said. “The latter, an up-and-coming English composer — at least at the time of writing the ‘Fantasia’ — whose music seems to owe as much to the famous English choral tradition as it does to the pastoral/folk song tradition of the British Isles.”
More Top Picks Best Leather Phone Cases With Card Holder
Centuries apart, the pieces fit.
“Nevertheless, both works are bound together by a simple concept — a deep understanding of and respect for the past,” Halls said. “Both Mozart and Vaughan Williams are reviving and reinvigorating music from the past — the end result in both works is nothing short of revelatory.”
He hopes the concert checks all the boxes for the audience.
“(It’s) an hour and a half of absolutely magical music — inspiring and heartfelt music-making that leaves a deep and lasting impression on the listener,” Halls said. “Isn’t that the Holy Grail of live music?”
To learn more about the works, a preconcert chat is offered one hour before each concert at 6:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.
Elgin Symphony Orchestra’s ‘Mozart Requiem’ Concert
When: 7:30 p.m. March 5 and 3 p.m. March 6
Where: Hemmens Cultural Center, 45 Symphony Way, Elgin
Tickets: $10-$65
Information: 847-888-4000; elginsymphony.org
Jen Banowetz is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.