Join Ars Gratia Populi and the Westmoreland Festival Chorus for an evening of beautiful, stirring choral music! RSVP here

This program explores the differing human reactions to death and the afterlife, and the wide spectrum of harmonic colors that these themes have inspired. Purcell’s setting of In the Midst of Life and Weelkes’ Death Hath Deprived Me use striking, unearthly chromaticism to highlight the bitterness of mortality, whereas Victoria’s expansive setting of Requiem Aeternam or Morley’s I Heard a Voice from Heaven embody the calm confidence of the Christian assured of salvation. To complete the program, a selection of American shape-note hymns speak of a new Heaven and new Earth, bringing hope for what lies beyond.