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The Santa Fe Symphony Chamber Ensemble—featuring some of your favorite musicians from the Orchestra—plus over 80 choristers from The Symphony Chorus unite to bring you this spectacular program at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. Be swept away by The Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams, Gavotte for Six Doubles by Rameaux, Lux Aeterna by Lauridsen, and more.
The Symphony Orchestra & Chorus
Carmen Flórez-Mansi, Choral Director
Ralph Vaughan Williams
The Lark Ascending
Jean-Philippe Rameaux
Gavotte with Six Doubles
Morten Lauridsen
Lux Aeterna
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Of Note
Nobody has evoked the languid pastoral England of our dreams quite as surely as Vaughan Williams did in The Lark Ascending. Likewise his Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis expresses the mysterious hold the Tudor past continues to have on our imagination. In light of this, it is easy to forget to think about what the man behind the music was really like.
Rameau worked with the writer/philosopher Voltaire as his librettist on two stage works. Jean-Jacques Rousseau hated him because Rameau criticized his compositions and, later, his music articles for Dénis Diderot’s Encyclopédie. So when Diderot wrote a famous, scathing satire of modern Frenchmen and critics of the Enlightenment, he called it Le neveu de Rameau (1761-1772).
Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna is a nonliturgical work, both traditional and modern, that embodies the composer’s profound spirituality. “Lux Aeterna is a very, very personal piece,” Lauridsen said. “It’s a meditation on enlightenment. I wrote it when my mother was dying, and I simply went through those Latin texts that all related to eternal light—and it brought me great comfort.”
Carmen Flórez-Mansi, choral director
Carmen Flórez-Mansi, a native of New Mexico, currently serves as the Pastoral Associate for Music at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. Since 1989, she has performed as a vocal artist, choral conductor, vocal instructor, and liturgy specialist throughout the Southwest, including solo appearances with the Santa Fe Desert Chorale and The Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra & Chorus.
The Santa Fe Symphony Chorus
Under the direction of Choral Director, Carmen Flórez Mansi, our 80+ member chorus presents professional-quality orchestral and choral concerts, as well as education and outreach programs for adults and school children. The Symphony Chorus has a considerable history of musical excellence in choral performance and is dedicated to creating a musical community rich with cultural and intellectual diversity.
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Program Notes
The Lark Ascending is inspired by the wonder of the bird in flight, but listeners should not expect a literal sound-portrait of the lark–instead, this music tries to capture the spirit of Meredith’s lines. This is not a virtuoso work but a rhapsodic one, restrained, gentle, and lyric. The orchestr…