Palm Sunday Concert: Stabat Mater

Sunday, 5 April, at four o'clock PM

The Episcopal Church of St. Paul, Chatham

Michele Repella, soprano
Joanna Hoty Russell, mezzo-soprano
Darlene Southard Wyzga, soprano
Marco Melendez, countertenor
Brandon Dumas, conductor

Tickets $15 adults
Students and Seniors $10
Children under 12 admitted free of charge

For tickets: brownpapertickets.com/event/58400
Or 973 635 8085

This Holy Week concert features the magnum opus of 18th century Italian composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi his Stabat Mater dolorosa. Written for soprano and alto voices with orchestral accompaniment, this piece was performed every Good Friday at the Monastery San Luigi di Palazzo in Naples, having replaced a work of the same name by Alessandro Scarlatti.

"Stabat Mater dolorosa" is a medieval Roman Catholic hymn which meditates on the suffering of the Blessed Virgin Mary during and following Jesus' crucifixion.

The program will open with the second movement of Samuel Barber's String Quartet, Op. 11. This is the work on which his most celebrated work–Adagio for Strings–is based.

The first half will conclude with Sergei Rachmaninoff's Vocalise. This work, the last of his "Fourteen Songs, Op. 34" was written in 1912 for soprano Antonina Nezhdanova, Written without words, it was intended to be sung on a neutral vowel to help convey the distinct inner sorrow the music was written to evoke. In this performance, an adaptation of this work for cello will be performed. With the cello's innate lyric, voice-like ability, this piece lends itself perfectly to the instrument.