Classical Showcase Continues with "Spring for Music" Friday at 7pm

The first of six "Spring for Music" concert series programs from Carnegie Hall in New York airs this Friday evening at 7 with a performance of Christopher Rouse's Requiem. This 90 minute work from 2003 was composed for the bicentenary of Hector Berlioz's birth. The Spring for Music Festival is a showcase for adventurous programming among American orchestras, and the series begins with the New York Philharmonic with a work by its composer-in-residence.  The Requiem by Christopher Rouse is also a musical response to the events of 9/11.  It uses the traditional Latin text, plus poems by Seamus Heaney, Siegfried Sassoon, Milton, and Michelangelo.  It's scored for full orchestra, adult choir, children's choir, baritone soloist, and a large percussion section. In the coming weeks, we'll be hearing other new, or rarely performed works, including the Pulitzer Prize in Music winner John Luther Adams' Become Ocean, with the Seattle Symphony, and Howard Hanson's 1933  opera Merry Mount in a complete performance with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and cast led by Michael Christie.  Just as rare, the Cincinnati Symphony Symphony and May Festival Chorus will present Robert Nathaniel Dett's 1937 oratorio, The Ordering of Moses. Classical Showcase presents performances from the Spring for Music Festival for the next six Fridays at 7 pm right here on Classical 101.