KHORIKOS presents CIVITAS

In November 2023, I led KHORIKOS in a two-concert unpacking of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, the biblical tale of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. I wrote a little bit more about the overall project on the KHORIKOS page.

We were so lucky to have the amazing saxophonist/composer/bandleader Charlotte Greve join us for these shows, and I conjured up a song cycle for her and the choir:

It starts with a short piece by the 16th-century composer John Mundy that features a crushing little rising-falling-rising melody, which I then spin off into a two-minute solo piece for Charlotte. The solo paves the way for a 20th-century piece by composer Cyrillus Kreek, at which point the choir takes over again, before the saxophone finally returns with music from the first two parts of the cycle.

It asks, faces rejection, and then asks again. The goal of this cycle is to unpack this sensation of humbling yourself — of feeling like you’re out of options, but reaching for some faith that someone will still listen. It kicks off a part of the concert about hope: for mercy, solidarity, or the promise of something else.

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I also wrote a two-movement opener for the second concert. Incipit starts with William Byrd’s Lamentations setting, for which the baritone line is lost to history! Not a problem. I wrote a new one, which the fabulous Richard Whitney sings solo, against the choir’s Renaissance polyphony.

This flows into a fully original piece, for which I made an erasure poem out of the whole Lamentations texts, in order to highlight some of the words that resonated most:

How lonely sits the city that was full of people!
She weeps, tears on her cheeks
All her love
Comfort
All her treacherous have become her

All her desolate groan
the precious things honored
she took no thought of her fall.

From my bones a net
no vision bowed
my eyes; my soul; my heart out

new hope is quiet, gold, changed

The holy weight, the work

behold,
our strangers
return