Musica Vocale opens its 10th season with a concert of partsongs from 12 composers, from the Renaissance to the present, in music of enormous emotional contrast. Almost all composers create, at some point, unaccompanied brief (from 1 minute to 7 or 8) sacred or secular choral pieces, many seeing the form as a major area of their compositional life.

The Bird and The Deer of this concert's title are references to works by Arvo Pärt and Charles V. Stanford. Both Stanford's The Blue Bird and Pärt's The Deer's Cry are quiet, deeply serene pieces which succeed in stopping the rush of time for a few moments, allowing each hearer to see around us and listen attentively to the quiet.

Renaissance master Monteverdi leads with two madrigals, joined by Poulenc (Un soir de neige, a set of four), Britten, Finzi, and Distler. Americans Chester L. Alwes, Halsey Stevens, Michael Hennigin, and Randall Thompson (in an almost never heard work) fill out the program.

Our collection of these spectacularly exciting and elegant pieces promises to leave you captivated by their beauty!