About the concert
The cello has long been called the instrument closest to the human voice. This observation is at the heart of the program: after hearing several works written for choir and cello, the performers decided to build an entire evening around this kinship of timbres.
The foundation of the program is choral music by contemporary Western European composers: Ola Gjeilo, Jacob Narverud, and Ēriks Ešenvalds. This music is transparent and slow, built less around events than around sustained harmonies — music that invites you to listen to the way a sound gradually fades away. Alongside it comes the Ukrainian side of the conversation: Viktor Stepurko’s cycle Monologues of the Ages, which naturally takes its place alongside the European scores. The instrumental episodes — Gaspar Cassadó’s Cello Suite and Ernest Bloch’s Prayer — give the voice a moment to rest while maintaining the same intonation of a focused, contemplative monologue.
The program is conceived as a continuous journey: the works are stylistically close, so they are arranged according to the dynamics of contrast — from silence to a gradual intensification and back again. It is best experienced as a whole, like one long thought.
St. Sophia’s Cathedral adds its own voice to this music: a long reverberation in which chords and vocal harmonies gradually dissolve.
Concert Program
- Ola Gjeilo — “O magnum mysterium” / “O Great Mystery”
- Jacob Narverud — “Sunflower”
- Viktor Stepurko — Monologues of the Ages, Nos. 11 and 12
- Ola Gjeilo — “Ave generosa” / “Hail, Full of Grace”
- Gaspar Cassadó — Cello Suite, II movement
- Ernest Bloch — “Prayer”
- Ēriks Ešenvalds — “In paradisum” / “In Paradise”
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