NEC Preparatory School National Youth Chorale Festival + Erica J. Washburn

Lasha Kvetenadze | Rad mitvaltsuneb?

Lasha Kvetenadze was born in 1978 in Tbilisi, Georgia.  He holds master’s degrees in both choral and opera-symphonic conducting from the V. Sarajishvili State Conservatoire in Tbilisi, where he also studied composition with Joseb Kechaqmadze and Bidzina Kvernadze.  He is active as a conductor and professional choral singer in Georgia.

Romantic poet Rapiel Eristavi was born in the village of Kitsauri in Kakheti in eastern Georgia.  He was a poet, playwright, historian, lexicologist, archaeologist, and played an important role in the development of Georgian ethnography and folk studies.  He also participated in the scientific study of the text of Shota Rustaveli’s The Knight in Panther’s Skin in 1882.

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Tobias Hiller | Seufzer, from "Zwei Mörikelieder" (2004)

Although the German poet Eduard Mörike hardly ever ventured out of the provincial environment of Württemberg’s small towns, his poetry is anything but provincial.  His lyric still seems to be at the same time wistful, sometimes engrossed, dreamily ecstatic, and ravishingly musical, as if Mörike had wanted to create with his poems a parallel world to the constrictions of civil conventions. His encounter with the mysteriously beautiful roamer Maria Meyer during his theology studies in Tübingen stigmatized him for life.  He constantly had secret and sometimes inhibited affairs.  His engagement to Luise Rau in 1829 fails, as does his marriage to Margarethe Speeth in 1851.  During his time as a vicar, he wrote his now famous nature lyrics (“Um Mitternacht”) and numerous love poems, but only rarely poems with religious content—which is surprising given his profession.  One of these poems, Seufzer, was written in 1832 and immediately set to music in an extremely conventional way by his brother Karl.

Composer Tobias Hiller was born in 1966 in Waldkirch (Breisgau) and studied music education in Freiburg (with an emphasis on singing, oboe, and conducting), as well as geography, history, and later choral and orchestral conducting at the Musikhochschule Frankfurt am Main under Professor Wolfgang Schaefer.  Master classes in singing broadened his repertoire and performance of early music, and conducting courses developed his background of oratorio and contemporary literature.  After several years as a professional freeland singer and conductor, he joined the faculty of the University of Tübingen as music director.  He and his various ensemles have performed throughout Europe, China, Maroc and Brazil, and his compositions are regularly performed southern Germany and Switzerland.

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César Alejandro Carrillo | O vos omnes (2013)

This work is an anguished cry at the irreparable loss of a loved one and must be sung with a feeling of deep pain and resignation.  It is dedicated to the loving memory of my son, Simón Odoardo Carrillo Morales, who departed to the Infinity on February 3, 2013.  God bless you, dear son, wherever you are.                               
– César Alejandro Carrillo

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Sarah Quartel | Wide Open Spaces (2014)

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There’s part of my story, there’s part of my song,
There’s part of my journey that’s yet to be found.
With life all around us and so much to see,
Adventure is calling,
It’s calling to me.
Out in the wide open spaces around me.

With big sky above me,
I’m on my way,
Scanning the horizon of a brand new day.
Feet to the earth now, there’s no turning back.
Into the world now, look at me go!
Out in the wide open spaces around me.

But as I journey out I look within
The spaces inside of me yet to be filled,
Filled with what I have seen and what I will be.
I’m filling the wide open spaces inside of me
With something I love, something I would like to be!
Filling the wide open spaces within me.

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