Transfigured By Song: A Celebration Of Spring In Words & Music

NEW HAVEN — Poems and prayers first sung in ancient times have been transfigured through the centuries by composers using richly varied musical idioms. Yale Schola Cantorum, directed by Simon Carrington, and with organist Thomas Murray, will perform some of this music in the context of a simple service of evening prayer celebrating the season of the earth’s transfiguration from winter to spring, from death to life.

Rev Thomas Troeger, the Edward and Ruth Cox Lantz Professor of Christian Communication at Yale, will preside. The service of evening prayer will be offered on Monday, April 24, at 8 pm, at Christ Church Episcopal.

The Yale Schola Cantorum, now in its third year, is a 24-voice chamber choir specializing in music before 1750 and from the last 100 years.

The program will include music ranging from Psalm setting to “A Garland for Linda,” a musical tribute to Sir Paul McCartney’s wife who died of cancer in 1998. The selections span more than half a millennium: from Adrian Willaert and Thomas Tallis in the 16th Century, to William Albright and Richard Rodney Bennett in the 20th, and Yale visiting composer Tarik O’Regan and graduate student composer Zachary Wadsworth in the 21st.

Thomas Murray will perform on the new Lovely-Fulcher organ, and join his student Alistair Nelson to provide accompaniment for William Albright’s David’s Songs.

The church is at 84 Broadway, on the corner of Elm Street. For more information, call the Yale Institute of Sacred Music at 203-432-5062.