Chicago a cappella presents Lamentations

Chicago a cappella(CAC), Chicago’s premier unaccompanied vocal ensemble, begins its 2024/25 Season this September with Lamentations, a program exploring narratives of displacement, yearning for home, and rebuilding. Featuring works that span numerous genres from multiple eras of, audiences will be treated to a unique collaboration between the ten singers of CAC and five dancers from dance company Ballet 5:8, presenting a modern twist on a long-time staple of choral repertoire, Thomas Tallis’Lamentations of Jeremiah. A four-concert tour begins on September 27 and travels around Chicagoland with stops in Chicago, Evanston, Oak Park, and Naperville. Tickets are on sale now at chicagoacappella.org.

The program begins with CAC singers, unaccompanied and unconducted, performing two traditional folk songs arranged by John William Trotter, Chicago a cappella’s Artistic Director and the music director for this program, Wayfaring Stranger and Farewell to Nova Scotia. Also in the first half of the program are two pieces by a pair of the best-known composers from the European Renaissance, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s Super Flumina Babylonis and Tomás Luis de Victoria’s O Vos Omnes. Russian composer Pavel Chesnokov’s Spaseniye, a piece that premiered only after Chesnokov had been sent to a gulag by the Soviet government, and two works by contemporary U.S. based composers Sarai Hillman and Saunders Choi, round out the first half of the program. Hillman was CAC’s first ever HerVoice composer– a program launched by CAC in 2021 to provide training and mentorship to the next generation of women choral composers. Her piece Psalm 59:16: Refuge and Safety was premiered by CAC in 2022. Choi’s work The New Colossus takes as its text the poem by Emma Lazarus mounted on the plinth of the Statue of Liberty.

The second half of the program begins with the highly anticipated performance of the Tallis featuring original choreography by Ballet 5:8 Artistic Director Julianna Rubio Slager. Five dancers from Ballet 5:8 join the ten singers of Chicago a cappella to embody the deep yearning expressed in Tallis’ interpretation of the biblical story of the destruction of Jerusalem. After the desolation of the Tallis, contemporary American composer Howard Helvey’s O Lux Beatissima closes the program with an evocation of all things light.

Tickets and Performances:

The performance schedule for Lamentations is as follows:

• Friday, September 27 at 7:30 PM at the Allen Recital Hall at Holtschneider Performance Center, 2330 N Halsted St. in Chicago
• Sunday, September 29 at 3:00 PM at Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Ave. in Evanston
• Saturday, October 5 at 7:30 PM at Grace Episcopal Church, 924 Lake St. in Oak Park
• Sunday October 6 at 4:00 PM at Wentz Concert Hall, 171 E Chicago Ave. in Naperville

Tickets are $38.00 general admission and $48.00 for preferred seating with a limited number of $10 Student tickets and Pay What You Can tickets available at each performance. Additionally, audiences have the opportunity to purchase a ticket to receive a link to a digital version of the performance for $38.00, available to stream from home beginning the week of October 21. Further discounts are available for members and groups of ten or more. Tickets for all performances in CAC’s 2024/25 Season are available now at chicagoacappella.org