Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming
An exciting Advent concert with a wide scope, both geographically and chronologically, including music by the great composers of the renaissance, and new music by Katarina Pustinek Rakar.
The baby Jesus is praised in William Hawley’s hymn Flos ut Rosa Floruit as well as in Jan Sandström’s beloved reworking of Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming. Many of the songs celebrate the Virgin Mary, such as Valentin Silvestrov’s Ave Maria and the two compositions for hymn Alma Redemptoris Mater by Palestrina and Damijan Močnik respectively. The programme is permeated by music by Armenian composer and priest Komitas Vardapet, and Armenia’s very own Zoltán Kodály, who spent a lot of time documenting folk songs, and laid the foundations for Armenian art music.
Participants
32 professional choristers make up the Swedish Radio Choir: a unique, dynamic instrument hailed by music-lovers and critics all over the world. The Swedish Radio Choir performs at Berwaldhallen, concert hall of the Swedish Radio, as well as on tours all over the country and the world. Also, they are heard regularly by millions of listeners on Swedish Radio P2, Berwaldhallen Play and globally through the EBU.
The award-winning Latvian conductor Kaspars Putniņš was appointed Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Choir in 2020. Since January 2019, its choirmaster is French orchestral and choral conductor Marc Korovitch, with responsibility for the choir’s vocal development.
The Swedish Radio Choir was founded in 1925, the same year as Sweden’s inaugural radio broadcasts, and gave its first concert in May that year. Multiple acclaimed and award-winning albums can be found in the choir’s record catalogue. Late 2023 saw the release of Kaspars Putniņš first album with the choir: Robert Schumann’s Missa sacra, recorded with organist Johan Hammarström.
Programme
Concert length: 1 h 30 min
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