Singing Without a Net

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Volti’s motto is “Singing without a net,” and the San Francisco-based vocal ensemble led by Music Director Robert Geary does indeed stay on the forefront of contemporary choral music.

Currently in its 30th anniversary season, the group returns in May with a far-reaching program featuring premieres by Donald Crockett and Robert Paterson, along with contemporary choral works by Kirke Mechem, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Sungji Hong.

Of particular interest is Crockett’s Daglarym/My Mountains. Composed on commission from Volti, with texts by Katherine Vincent, the set of five movements is inspired by the folk music traditions of Tuva. Geary praises the beauties of the score, calling it “evocative of sweeping landscapes and a pastoral and meditative existence.”

Paterson’s On the Day the World Ends (another Volti commission) is a cycle of three pieces incorporating poetry by Czeslaw Miosz, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Mary Elizabeth Frye. Also included are Mechem’s Three Madrigals, a setting of texts by the composer’s father, poet and author Kirke F. Mechem, and Kernis’ Ecstatic Meditations, which incorporates writings by 13th-century mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg. Hong’s Emendemus in melius completes the program.