Brattleboro Concert Choir Performs May 4-5 in Persons Auditorium

April 30, 2024

The Brattleboro Concert Choir (BCC) presents In Paradisum: Music of Gabriel Fauré featuring the Requiem, “Cantique de Jean Racine,” and “Tu es Petrus” with orchestra. The concerts are scheduled for 7 pm on Saturday, May 4 and 4 pm on Sunday, May 5 in Persons Auditorium at Potash Hill.

“Our ‘In Paradisum’ concerts are meant to be a balm and a respite in stressful and troubling times,” says BCC Musical Director Jonathan Harvey. “All three pieces on the program are by French Romantic composer Gabriel Fauré, whose music has an indefinable transcendent beauty. The American composer Aaron Copland once wrote of Fauré’s music that ‘those aware of musical refinements cannot help admire the transparent texture, the clarity of thought, the well-shaped proportions. Together they constitute a kind of Fauré magic that is difficult to analyze but lovely to hear.’ We hope this will be a special, soul-feeding concert, like a comforting musical blanket.”

Harvey continues: “The central piece of the program is Fauré’s Requiem. Usually, musical Requiems are quite dark, fearful, and almost violent, since they are drawn from the Roman Catholic service for the dead. Fauré’s is different – the core of the piece is for it to act as a comfort to those who are still living.”

Seating is general admission. Tickets are $20 in advance or $25 at the door. Youth tickets are $10, and audiences
12 and under are free. Click here for tickets and more information.