A Monument of Sacred Music: The work is dedicated to Anton Ritter Imhof von Geißlinghof, an important supporter of Bruckner’s in the Office of the Court Chamberlain. In a letter to the dedicatee, Bruckner emphasized that he had taken “the greatest trouble” in composing the mass. In the early biographies of Bruckner, reference is made to his spiritual inspirations in an anecdotal way.
Church music by Italian opera composers of the 19th century: While opera was clearly at the heart of music in Italy – it was the only way to achieve national renown – church music was certainly more present in the daily lives of the people. Most churches maintained choirs and orchestras, performing pieces written by professional church music directors, who also raised the next generation of musicians and composers.
Any jubilee, whether a birthday or the anniversary of someone’s death or even a premiere, is always a great opportunity to spotlight a particular work. We asked around at Carus to find out what our colleagues would like to play and sing in their choirs in the coming years. Perhaps you can borrow one or two of their ideas!
My most emotional experience was putting together my first concert with Vocal Journey (the jazz and pop choir of the Cologne University of Music and Dance) and my band after the pandemic in the Cologne Philharmonic Hall, as conductor, composer, arranger and pianist!
As a performer, I once participated in a version of John Cage’s ASLAP that lasted four uninterrupted days. It was performed on the organ of a beautiful church in a former monastery in Santiago de Chile, and many organists participated in two-hour shifts. I played in the middle of the night, and it was an almost transcendental experience to be in that church, enveloped by the sound of the organ, especially considering that I only had three chord changes in two hours. It was the closest thing to a musical “trance” that I had ever experienced.
Born in 1998, he began playing the piano at the age of four and composed his first opera Streichkonzert at the age of sixteen, which premiered at the Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen in 2016. In the same year, he began studying composition with Manfred Trojahn at the Robert Schumann University, which he completed with a master’s degree in 2023 after studying at the Cologne University of Music and Dance with Brigitta Muntendorf and Miroslav Srnka.
Bill Ives has devoted himself entirely to choral music. Several of his works have been published by Carus, most recently the Christmas composition ‘Three Points of Light’.
