Name: The Tallis Scholars
Start: 2022-05-06T20:00:00
Location: First Congregational Church

Peter Phillips

The Tallis Scholars

Cal Performances

In the stirring and eclectic presentation, This Land, celebrated pianist, NPR host, and California native Lara Downes welcomes an all-star cast of collaborators for a program of classical and popular music that explores the richness and complexity of the American experience.

Lara Downes and Friends

In an imaginative program that builds a bridge between the 15th and 21st centuries, the superlative Tallis Scholars pair a masterwork of Renaissance polyphony with a new composition by composer David Lang.   Antoine Brumel’s colossal Earthquake Mass, scored for 12 voices, is a marvel in its imagination and scale, the intricate, dense music coming alive through the clarity, precision, and purity of tone that has been the hallmark of this ensemble’s performances for decades.   Lang, who is co-founder and co-artistic director of the groundbreaking new-music collective Bang on a Can, has composed dozens of award-winning works for choir and voice, from chamber works to oratorios to opera—and received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for another a cappella work, The Little Match Girl Passion. His sun-centered is a response to Brumel’s mass, inspired by Galileo’s pursuit of truth, the relentless nature of human curiosity, and the perils of suppressing it.   “The sound Phillips draws from the Scholars manages to be ethereal and yet full-blooded, uplifting and yet grounded in the very human emotions the words express” (The Guardian).