Spring Concert: Evening and Morning – Music To Lighten Our Darkness (Plymouth)

Pilgrim Festival Chorus’s spring concert, Evening and Morning – Music To Lighten Our Darkness, will be a study in contrasts, featuring Sunrise Mass by Ola Gjeilo and Solemn Vespers by W. A. Mozart. Gjielo, a native of Norway, is of one of the best-regarded living composers. He describes his Sunrise Mass, commissioned in 2007, as “a musical journey evolving from transparent and spacey to earthy and warm… from nebulous and pristine, through more emotional landscapes, to ultimately solid groundedness – as a metaphor for human development from child to adult, or as a spiritual journey.” Mozart’s Vesperae solennes de confessore (or Solemn Vespers) was written in 1780, his final composition for Salzburg Cathedral. The music was intended for evening services and includes some of his most sublime writing. Both pieces will be accompanied by orchestra and The Church of the Pilgrimage’s three-manual Roche pipe organ.