Boulder Chamber Orchestra and Chamber Chorale collaborate on Requiem

By Peter Alexander Feb. 13 at 11 p.m.

Maria Luigi Carlo Zenobio Salvatore Cherubini just may be the most influential classical composer you have never heard of.

Luigi Cherubini. Portrait by Jean-Auguste-Dominiquie Ingres.

As director of the Paris Conservatoire for 20 years (1822-42) and author of an important textbook on counterpoint, he influenced a generation of younger musicians. His many operas and his church works were widely performed and admired in his lifetime.

In particular his Requiem in C minor—which will be performed Saturday (Feb. 15) by the Boulder Chamber Orchestra and Boulder Chamber Choir—was admired by Beethoven, who asked that it be performed at his funeral.

“It’s a beautiful, beautiful piece,” says Vicki Burrichter, director of the Boulder Chamber Choir who is preparing the chorus for the performance. “Cherubini’s really extraordinary and was admired by Beethoven and Schumann and Brahms. I think he should be performed a lot more often.”

Bahman Saless, the conductor of the Boulder Chamber Orchestra who will lead the performance, agrees. He writes by email from Prague, where he is traveling as a conductor, “What I would like our audience to take away from this concert is that there were many contemporaries of Beethoven and Mozart who were overshadowed by the presence of these titans. Some of them deserve some light to shine on them.”

Read more in Boulder Weekly.

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Luigi Cherubini: Requiem in C minor
Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Bahman Saless, conductor
With the Boulder Chamber Chorale, Vicki Burrichter, chorus director

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 15, First United Methodist Church
1421 Spruce St., Boulder

Tickets