ELORA – The Elora Singers are hosting a Canadian premiere as the opening concert of their 2019/20 winter season – To the Hands featuring Caroline Shaw’s To the Hands and Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Ad Genua.
The Crossing, a Philadelphia-based choir, commissioned these two pieces, along with five others, as a modern response to Danish composer Dietrich Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri. This is the first time these modern responses are being performed in Canada.
“They drew me in both for their historical connection to the early-baroque German master, Dietrich Buxtehude, and for their contemporary relevance in the 20th century,” said Mark Vuorinen, the Elora Singer’s artistic director.
“The works by Caroline Shaw and Anna Thorvaldsdottir are contemporary responses to Buxtehude’s passion cantatas, Membra Jesu nostri.
“This work contemplates Christ’s limbs on the cross as a meditation of his passion. Shaw and Thorvaldsdottir respond to Buxtehude with reflections of their own, contemporary and immediate.”
This impact is the call to question what it means to be a neighbour in a world where increasing nationalism is juxtaposed with media that bridges oceans and continents, vividly turning protestors, disaster victims, and refugees into neighbours.
On Nov. 17, join The Elora Singers for its opening concert To the Hands at 3:30pm at St. John’s Church in Elora.
To purchase tickets visit https://tickets.elorafestival.com/TheatreManager/1/login?event=0.
