Choir and Orchestra to perform Elgar’s Sea Pictures

Community Invited to participate in “Experiential Sing”

Connecticut Chamber Choir and Orchestra, under the direction of Constance Chase, will present the American premiere on Sunday, May 1, 2016, of Donald Fraser’s stunning new setting of Sir Edward Elgar’s Sea Pictures for chorus and string orchestra. The concert takes place at St. Theresa Church, 5301 Main Street, Trumbull, Ct., at 4 p.m. British composer-arranger Donald Fraser will be on hand for a pre-concert talk starting at 3:15.

Conductors, singers, and voice or choral students of high school age and beyond are invited to participate in an experiential sing immediately following the premiere. To participate, contact CCC (info@ctchamberchoir.org) in advance for a copy of the choral score and to register for the “group sing” with CCC members disbursed among the audience. Audience members who do not sing will relish a unique “surround sound” experience of this lush and evocative work.

Contact CCC at info@ctchamberchoir.org to secure a choral score or request further information.

CCC offers a student ticket price of $5. Adults are $20; seniors, $15.  Children under 12 accompanied by a paying adult are free. Tickets are available by contacting info@ctchamberchoir.org, or by telephone, (203) 459-1496, or at the door.

Connecticut Chamber Choir will conclude the concert — and their 38th season, A Season of Poetry in Song — with Stephen Paulus’ effecting The Day Is Done.

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Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. His Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D, also know as the Graduation March, is perhaps his best known composition.

Sea Pictures, Op. 37, is a song cycle by Sir Edward Elgar consisting of five songs written by various poets. The songs are: "Sea Slumber Song" by Roden Noel; "In Haven (Capri)" by Caroline Alice Elgar, the composer's wife; "Sabbath Morning at Sea" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "Where Corals Lie" by Richard Garnett; and "The Swimmer" by Adam Lindsay Gordon.

The new arrangement of Sea Pictures for chorus and strings was made by composer Donald Fraser, who lived and worked for many years at Elgar’s cottage at Brinkwells, England. It was premiered on October 7, 2015, at Hereford Cathedral, England, near Elgar’s former home. The work was recently recorded for the Avie CD label at Abbey Road Studios under the baton of English Symphony Orchestra Principal Conductor, Kenneth Woods. “What Donald has done in this arrangement,” says Woods, “is really incredible. He’s not added, removed or changed a single note of Elgar’s arrangement, but he’s created a new sound world where the relationships between the musical ideas become clearer and more flexible because it’s no longer a soloist and orchestra, but two homogenous ensembles. I think it’s a very important addition to the choral repertoire, and it’s wonderful that the first performance [took] place in Hereford, which has such a proud Elgar heritage.” Connecticut Chamber Choir is thrilled to present the American premiere just days before the May 6 release of the CD, the first recording of the work Classical Music Magazine cited as “Premiere of the Year.”

The Connecticut Chamber Choir season is supported in part by The Cyrus W. and Amy F. Jones and Bessie D. Phelps Foundation, Inc., Cultural Alliance of Fairfield Country and the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, Office of the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. 

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Press contact: Dolores Boudreau Abbott

Dolores-abbott@sbcglobal.net

203-556-9647

Connecticut Chamber Choir                                                     

www.ctchamberchoir.org