Touring
LAGRIME DI SAN PIETRO
From the creative mind of acclaimed director Peter Sellars comes his very first a cappella staging and most personal work to date. Orlando di Lasso knew that Lagrime was to be the last piece he would ever compose, and so he packed every measure with an emotionally charged texture that channeled all of his pain and remorse into a towering work of beauty.
Twenty-one singers transform this 75-minute sweeping a cappella Renaissance masterpiece – committed to memory and dramatically staged – into an overwhelmingly emotional performance piece. Set to the poetry of Luigi Tansillo (1510- 1568), “I accept responsibility” is the fundamental theme of this work depicting the seven stages of grief that St. Peter experienced after disavowing his knowledge of Jesus Christ on the day
MUSIC TO ACCOMPANY A DEPARTURE
The Los Angeles Master Chorale and acclaimed director Peter Sellars have once again created a stirring, searing and thoroughly contemporary work from an ancient source. Musikalische Exequien by Heinrich Schütz, the most formidable German composer prior to J.S. Bach, is a musical response to the plagues of his time. It was the first German requiem, and the writing for solo voices is often florid in the Italian Baroque manner, while the choral sections build upon the German chorale tradition.
For over an hour, 24 singers, with as many as 18 taking the solo parts at various points, gather for quiet, sober, beautiful, and tender communal grieving. Symbolically, this staging encapsulates the message of the Musikalische Exequien—the term “exequies” deriving from the Latin word for a “train of followers.” In Schütz’s singularly moving dramaturgy, they/we are gathering, learning to accompany a departure.
Through its innovative use of solo and choral sections, the work powerfully conveys what it means to say goodbye and to have faith that the departed’s presence remains with us. With its reflective interludes and passionate outbursts, this performance captures both the beauty of life and the mystery of death, serving as both lamentation and celebration. The result is a stirring piece that reminds us that grief and transformation are eternally linked, and that saying farewell can be a source of inspiration and strength.
**Music to Accompany a Departure is made possible by generous support from Lillian Pierson Lovelace, Patrick R. Fitzgerald and Ron Myrick.
Co-commissioned by Los Angeles Master Chorale, Cal Performances at University of California, Berkeley Stanford Live at Stanford University, and Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
HERSELF BEHIND HERSELF, CONCEALED
The piece is based on the painting Judith Slaying Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi, a female Italian Baroque artist who lived in the late 16th to early 17th century. This piece will bring her incredibly poignant story and dramatic painting to life, with Judith portrayed as a modern black woman. The painting shows the moment when Judith, helped by her maidservant, beheads Holofernes, a general who had come to destroy her home. In the painting, Artemisia Gentileschi drew herself as Judith and her rapist as Holofernes. Gentileschi’s biographer proposed an autobiographical reading of the painting, which she believed depicted “a cathartic expression of the artist’s private, and perhaps repressed, rage.” The libretto, written by acclaimed poet Safiya Sinclair, will move through three different time periods, framed by the same painting. First the Biblical story of Judith, then the story of the painter Gentileschi immortalizing her power over her rapist, and finally the modern story of Judith, a woman who overcomes a patriarchal system that harasses and harms her, and longs to see her fail. Finally, we see our Judith— for we are all Judith—beheading the injustices that move against all women and their human rights.
**The LA Master Chorale will premier a concert version workshop of the piece in our 26/27 season and then mount the fully staged version in our 27/28 season. This could then be toured after the staged premiere.
LIGHTSCAPE
Doug Aitken’s Lightscape was created in collaboration with the LA Master Chorale. A transcendent live experience—part musical performance, part living artwork—engulfs audiences in a hallucinatory vision of the modern world. Abandoning traditional narrative and theatrical conventions, it unfolds like a seamless dream of interconnected vignettes. Led by Grant Gershon, a touring ensemble of eight LA Master Chorale singers brings Lightscape to life, transforming the stage into an ever-shifting, cinematic canvas. This isn’t just a performance—it’s an alchemical fusion of sound and image. Layering choral resonance with rhythmic meditation, Lightscape unfolds in intricate, ever-evolving patterns, drawing from the minimalist tradition.
Lightscape is an immersive experience designed to mesmerize and transport audiences at every stop on its tour. Fresh from its critically acclaimed debut, Lightscape is set to embark on a transformative tour, expanding the boundaries of live performance. A radical fusion of music, voice, and image, this immersive experience bends time and space, reshaping every venue into a living, breathing work of art. With its multi-screen projections and hypnotic choral compositions, Lightscape isn’t just a performance—it’s a sensory event that electrifies audiences, dissolving the line between reality and dream. The production adapts to new environments and draws fresh meaning from the cultural landscapes it inhabits. At once a visceral spectacle and a contemplative journey, Lightscape invites audiences to step into a dynamic world where contemporary mythology collides with future possibilities. With its adaptable format, this production seamlessly integrates into each venue.
SACRED SPACES
The programs under the SACRED SPACES moniker will interweave an iconic Renaissance mass by Palestrina, di Lasso or Victoria with sacred a cappella works from throughout the centuries.
SAMPLE PROGRAM:
Missa Ave Regina Coelorum – Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Locus iste – Anton Bruckner
We Shall Walk Through the Valley in Peace – arr. Undine Smith Moore
Cum Sancto Spiritu – Hyowon Woo
My Lord, What a Mourning – arr. William L. Dawson
The Lord’s Prayer – Duke Ellington
Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal – arr. Alice Parker
Abide With Me – arr. Moses Hogan
O Magnum Mysterium – Morten Lauridsen
MALHAAR: REQUIEM FOR WATER
Music, like water, has the power to move and transform. Reena Esmail looked for a way to process our anxiety about climate change and the toll it has taken on Southern California for her work, Malhaar: A Requiem for Water, a piece inspired by Hindustani music.
Notes from Composer Reena Esmail
Malhaar refers to a family of raags (pleasing melodies) that beckon rain. As the legend goes, the greatest musicians could cause a downpour from even the most severely parched skies by the power of their song. This is the inspiration for Malhaar: A Requiem for Water. As drought worsened in Southern California, I yearned for a way to process the rising panic. The work intertwines texts from the traditional Latin Requiem mass alongside the work of Wendell Berry and William O’Daly, along with interspersed Hindi. It traces a trajectory of beauty and awe of water, the fear and devastation around its loss, an answered plea of atonement, and eventually a promise of a new cycle of life, as the water returns to the skies. This is a hopeful requiem. While the collective loss has been so tremendous, we can still hold out hope that if we change our relationship to the earth, we might beckon the rain back.
