How does the past inform the present and point the way to the future? The professional vocal ensemble Volti continues its 45th season of “singing without a net” with a concert of beautiful and groundbreaking music exploring historic concepts of spiritual diversity, largely from the writings of female medieval mystics, as expressed by contemporary composers. Robert Geary conducts.
The program features the world premiere of “De Profundis,” a Volti commission by rising young Bay Area composer Jens Ibsen, setting Psalm 130, “Out of the depths I have cried unto thee, O Lord.” Volti also sings an earlier Ibsen work, “How god comes to the soul,” with text by the medieval mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg, alongside "Ecstatic Meditations," Aaron Jay Kernis's spectacular settings of this text and others by Mechthild, in Jane Hirshfield's translation.
Also contemporary works by Joanna Marsh, Emma O’Halloran, Forrest Pierce, and Ingrid Stölzel.