St James' Lunchtime Concerts: The Sjaella Vocal Ensemble

Lunchtime concerts at St James' return after their hiatus!

Experience the Sjaella Choir in their Australian debut and one of only two Sydney concerts!

Sjaella is an all woman acapella group from Leipzig who formed in 2005, and it has now taken them around the world. Sjaella hasbeen a fixture on the universal vocal music scene for years, performing concerts at renowned festivals, and winning first prize at many competitions. The ensemble has recently been on concert tours to South Africa, Belgium, Spain, and Norway.

Natural phenomena, and a call for peace and freedom are combined in this programme, in which Sjaella harmoniously brings together contemporary music, settings of spiritual texts and Baroque sounds.

They will be preforming in the church on July 12th at 1:15pm.
Tickets are $10 and can be purchased for both in person and online attendance.


(When purchasing an online ticket, a Youtube link to the stream and subsequent recording will be sent to the email you purchased your ticket with)

Programme:

Moving and timeless themes take center stage in this concert: peace, the wonder of nature, and love. The first part of the concert consists of new settings of spiritual texts, prayers and hymns by Arvo Pärt, Ola Gjeilo and other current artists. Martin Luther King’s powerful call for light and love, set to music by Fredrik Sixten, might be seen as the centerpiece. After this, the programme strikes a path into nature, where the many facets of the four seasons from Henry Purcell’s The Fairy Queen are presented - reworked for Sjaella with Baroque and contemporary elements. And in Ēriks Ešenvalds’ musical setting of the poem Stars, voices and glasses declare their admiration for the starlit sky and the majesty of this universe.

World Harmony

O Christe, flos convállium

Enrico Correggia (*1988)

Text: Medieval Hymn

Northern Lights

Ola Gjeilo (*1978)

Text: Song of Solomon

* * *

Da pacem Domine

Medieval Antiphon, Litany of Coventry (1958), Martin Luther (1529),

Setting: Gregor Meyer (*1979)

Peace upon you, Jerusalem

Arvo Pärt (*1935)

Text: Psalm 122

Peace in Our Time

Fredrik Sixten (*1962)

Text: Quote from Martin Luther King

* * *

Thus the ever grateful spring (Spring)

Here’s the summer, sprightly, gay (Summer)

See my many coloured fields (Autumn)

Now winter comes slowly (Winter)

Henry Purcell (1659-1695)

from The Fairy Queen, Act 4, 1692

text after A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Willian Shakespeare

arranged by Gregor Meyer (*1979)

* * *

Stars

Ēriks Ešenvalds (*1977)

Text: Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)