Saturday’s concert features both solace and celebration

By Peter Alexander Nov. 4 at 10:54 p.m.

Vicki Burrichter dreams of a world in harmony. But as director of the Boulder Chorale, she not only dreams about it, she works to bring it about, one performance at a time.

The Chorale’s next concert, Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 6 and 7 at 4 p.m. in the First United Methodist Church in Boulder, is in fact titled “A World in Harmony: A Ceremony of Solace and Celebration.” An updating of a program originally planned before COVID struck, it will include music of solace and consolation, then transition to music of joy and celebration.

Tickets are available from the Boulder Chorale Web site. Audience members must have proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID test for admission, and must wear a mask during the performance. All singers have been vaccinated, and will be wearing resonance masks during the performance.

“This program, with some tweaks and some edits, was the program that we were about to perform when we shut down (during) concert week back in March (2020),” Burrichter says. “The first half is going to be all meditative choral music, mostly a cappella. 

“I want people to be able to just think, meditate, breathe— whatever they want to do. And it’s not only to honor the 700,000 lost in COVID in this country, but also the victims of the King Sooper’s shooting.”

The concert will open with an instrumental performance of the theme from Schindler’s List, played by pianist Adam Waite and violinist Leena Waite. That will be followed by a setting of the Latin text Lux Aeterna (Eternal light), set to the music of the well known “Nimrod” variation from Elgar’s Enigma Variations, a piece often chosen for moments of mourning or meditation.

Also on the first half of the program is “Underneath the Stars,” a piece about parting from friends that was performed by the British a capella vocal group Voces8. “I go a lot by feel when I program,” Burrichter says. “The feeling of this piece—the text is not literally about somebody dying, but the grief of losing somebody is really in the piece. It’s definitely about letting go of somebody that you don’t want to let go of.”

The final two pieces on the first half—“Alleluia” from Brazilian Psalms by Jean Berger and Jorge de Lima, and the “Gloria” from Missa Brevis in Honorem Beatae Mariae Virginis by Lithuanian composer Kristina Vasiliauskaite—were selected to form a transition to the more joyful second half of the concert. ”I really wanted to lift the mood a little bit,” Burrichter says. “I wanted to have these moments of transcendence and joy after the deep grief of the first few pieces.”

“Then for the second half it’s going to be completely different, with the full band and soloists and everything. No one’s really been able to sing in public, and I wanted people to be able to sing with us and sing with the band and have a celebration.”

The first four pieces after intermission will be well known pop songs, all arranged by Waite who has been Burrichter’s first-choice arranger for some time. “He and I are very much on the same page musically,” she says. “He’s really wonderful!”

There will be printed lyrics for the audience, and guest soloist Christopher Hearns will help lead the audience though the Kinks “You Really Got Me,” Earth Wind and Fire’s “September,” Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour” and Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer.” Hearns is best known as a gospel singer and is currently lead singer of the Confluence Band and director of music at Jordan Chapel Church in Denver.

“He’s quite an accomplished singer,” Burrichter says. “I’m looking forward to what he can do with the Kinks’ music.”

Following the sing-along, the concert will conclude with three pieces Burrichter selected to impart a message of hope for the audience. The first will be Toto’s “Africa,” which she originally planned to end the concert that was canceled last year. That will be followed by “All of Us” by Craig Hella Johnson, from the composer’s oratorio Considering Matthew Shepherd, and last will be “We are the Ones We Are Waiting For” by Sunny McHale. 

Johnson’s “All of Us” has “a message that is so powerful and really fits the moment,” Burrichter says. “And the last piece is the thing that we sang during our online sessions all this last year. We would end with it just as a reminder that we are still a community, and that we have the power to make change.

“I wanted to end the concert with those kinds of songs that tie into what we did in the Boulder community during COVID. I’m certain it will be a joyful noise!”

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“A World in Harmony: A Ceremony of Solace and Celebration”
Boulder Concert Chorale with Christopher Hearns, guest artist
Vicki Burrichter, conductor

4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 6 and 7
First United Methodist Church, Boulder

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