UBI CARITAS
Where Love Dwells
A journey from ancient chant to luminous night
Connecticut Choral Society
Eric Dale Knapp, Music & Artistic Director
With string quartet, piano, organ and vocal soloists
Arijana Lempke · Carolyn Fagerholm · Dorin McBride
SUNDAY, JUNE 13, 2027 · 3 PM
Valley Presbyterian Church | Brookfield, Connecticut
$20 suggested donation at the door
ANCIENT WORDS. NEW PERSPECTIVES.
“Where charity and love are, God is there.”
A single melodic line opens the concert. Sung by an ensemble of tenors and basses, the ancient chant Ubi caritas establishes a musical and spiritual point of departure. From this unison beginning, the sound gradually expands: voices gather into harmony, the piano enters, and strings open a wider expressive landscape.
The Connecticut Choral Society presents a program tracing the relationship between love, faith and the search for light. Music by Maurice Duruflé, Roxanna Panufnik, John Rutter, Kim André Arnesen and Ricky Ian Gordon leads to Ola Gjeilo’s expansive companion works, Dark Night of the Soul and Luminous Night of the Soul.
Across these distinct musical voices runs a shared concern: what sustains us through uncertainty, and what draws us toward one another?
THE PROGRAM
GREGORIAN CHANT
Ubi caritas
Ensemble of unaccompanied tenors and basses
MAURICE DURUFLÉ
Ubi caritas, Op. 10, No. 1
From Quatre motets sur des thèmes grégoriens
Unaccompanied mixed choir
OLA GJEILO
Ubi Caritas with Piano Improvisation
Mixed choir and piano
ROXANNA PANUFNIK
O Hearken
Unaccompanied mixed choir
JOHN RUTTER
Domine Deus
Second movement from Gloria
Mixed choir, two sopranos, mezzo-soprano and organ
KIM ANDRÉ ARNESEN
Even When He Is Silent
Unaccompanied mixed choir
RICKY IAN GORDON
Will There Really Be a Morning?
Poetry by Emily Dickinson
Soprano and piano
OLA GJEILO
Dark Night of the Soul
Luminous Night of the Soul
Mixed choir, piano and string quartet
ONE TEXT. THREE MUSICAL WORLDS.
The opening sequence offers an opportunity to hear the same words through three distinct musical perspectives. Gregorian chant gives Ubi caritas the clarity of a single line. Duruflé surrounds its ancient melody with flowing choral harmonies, preserving the chant’s freedom within the rich sonorities of twentieth-century French sacred music. Gjeilo brings a contemporary sensibility to the text, with piano adding another dimension of resonance and reflection. Heard together, these settings reveal how musical inheritance remains alive: each composer finds new possibilities within words that have endured for centuries.
THE VOICE OF PRAYER. THE QUESTION OF HOPE.
Panufnik’s O Hearken brings brightness and urgency to a prayer to be heard. Rutter’s Domine Deus follows with a more sustained appeal for mercy, its lyrical writing drawing chorus, soloists and organ into an intimate exchange. In Arnesen’s Even When He Is Silent, the choir returns to the exposed immediacy of unaccompanied singing. Its affirmation of belief acknowledges the difficulty of trusting what cannot presently be seen, felt or heard. Then a solitary soprano asks Emily Dickinson’s searching question: Will There Really Be a Morning? Ricky Ian Gordon’s setting gives that question both wonder and emotional reach. With the chorus silent, one voice opens the way into the concert’s final journey.
THROUGH DARKNESS TOWARD LIGHT
Gjeilo’s Dark Night of the Soul and Luminous Night of the Soul bring the full resources of choir, piano and string quartet together. Drawing on the mystical poetry of St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul unfolds through restless motion and spacious stillness. The piano takes an active role, while strings and voices give the journey depth, color and dramatic scale. Its companion, Luminous Night of the Soul, places poetry by Charles Anthony Silvestri alongside words by St. John of the Cross, connecting spiritual discovery with the human impulse to create. Together, the works form the culmination of the afternoon. The opening declaration of love has passed through prayer, uncertainty and longing to arrive at a broader vision of illumination—and of the imagination that allows an inward experience to become something shared.
THE ARTISTS
Under Eric Dale Knapp, the Connecticut Choral Society is joined by Arijana Lempke, Carolyn Fagerholm and Dorin McBride, Max Vladimiroff, piano and organ with string quartet. The program’s changing combinations place individual expression within a larger musical conversation. From the intimacy of unaccompanied voices to the breadth of the concluding works, each ensemble brings a different perspective to the journey.
Additional artist information will be announced.
GREAT MUSIC. CLOSE TO HOME.
The Connecticut Choral Society brings performances of distinction into the life of Western Connecticut, welcoming listeners who know the repertoire and those encountering it for the first time. Where Love Dwells offers an afternoon of discovery: ancient words heard afresh, contemporary music of striking immediacy, and the experience of listening together.
Admission is free. A $20 donation is suggested at the door, with all proceeds benefiting the Association of Religious Communities (ARC) in support of neighbors in need.
Come with a friend. Bring someone curious. Or take a seat among us and let the music unfold.
PLAN YOUR VISIT
UBI CARITAS | WHERE LOVE DWELLS
Connecticut Choral Society
Eric Dale Knapp, Music & Artistic Director
SUNDAY, JUNE 13, 2027 · 3 PM
Valley Presbyterian Church
21 West Whisconier Road
Brookfield, CT 06804
$20 suggested donation at the door
COME. LISTEN. BE PART OF SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL.