FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 3, 2014
CONTACT:
Rebecca Bailey, Publicity Coordinator/Writer
Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College rebecca.a.bailey@dartmouth.edu
603.646.3991
Photo: Louis Burkot conducts the Dartmouth College Glee Club. Photo by Rob Strong.
HANOVER, NH—Gabriel Fauré's Requiem in D minor, Op. 48—marked by a purity and directness of expression that have kept this work fresh for more than a century of listeners—shares a program with African American spirituals, Spanish Renaissance music and a setting of the poetry of Federico García Lorca when the
Dartmouth College Glee Club performs in Dartmouth's Rollins Chapel on Sunday, November 9, at 2 pm.
The program represents the music the Glee
Club will take on the road when it tours Cuba this December, Director Louis Burkot said. The chorus is accompanied on one work by classical guitarist and Dartmouth music instructor John
Muratore ("a fleet-fingered and musicianly performer who…could unleash so many different varieties of tone color in quick succession—a kind of aural iridescence"—The
Boston Globe).
The concert's main work is the requiem, which
Fauré composed after decades of playing other composers' requiems, or burial masses. His own vision of the hereafter was in contrast with that often dark, weighty music. Instead, the gentle French organist-composer and music teacher offered a consoling vision of death. Marked by subtle gradations in dynamic, color, and harmony, his intimate creation evokes celestial comfort, not fear of damnation. The work aims more to comfort survivors than to shock them with visions of damnation. Wrote Fauré's former pupil, the great conductor and teacher Nadia Boulanger, who conducted many performances of the Requiem, "All that
Gabriel Fauré has touched he has sensitized and made cherishable. If anything could truly mitigate for us the thought of death, it would be the image of hope, of serenity which he has made for us."

Also, unlike other composers of the late 19 th century, who tended to write for progressively larger and larger ensembles, Fauré opted for a more intimate sound. The 40-member glee club will be accompanied by chamber orchestra and Rollins' melodious Austin pipe organ.
Interviewed in 1902, Fauré explained, "It has been said that my Requiem does not express the fear of death and someone has called it a lullaby of death. But it is thus that I see death: as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience. The music of Gounod has been criticized for its overinclination towards human tenderness. But his nature predisposed him to feel this way: religious emotion took this form inside him. Is it not necessary to accept the artist's nature? As to my Requiem, perhaps I have also instinctively sought to escape from what is thought right and proper, after all the years of accompanying burial services on the organ! I know it all by heart. I wanted to write something different."
Fauré began work on it in 1887 and completed the score only eight days before its first performance on
January 16, 1888, at the Madeleine in Paris, where he was assistant organist. The death of Fauré’s father in
1885 and his mother two years later may have lent a deeper significance and added poignancy to the task, biographers speculate. There are three versions of the work, dating from 1888, 1893 and 1900. The 1888 score omits two movements added in 1893—one of them the tumultuous baritone solo Libera me, the most anguished portion of the work—and the 1900 version scores the work for full orchestra.
Other works on the program are African American spirituals arranged by Moses Hogan (1957-2003), a New
Orleans-born, Oberlin-educated composer best known for spiritual arrangements that employ great choral effects while retaining the idiom and directness of the original versions; the short mass O Quam Gloriosum, by
Tomás Luis de Victoria, one of the leading composers of the Spanish Renaissance and a strong influence on composers in the New World; and selections from Mario Castelneuvo-Tedesco’s ravishingly beautiful 1951
Romancero Gitano, a suite of settings of poems by the Spanish poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca, set for chorus and solo guitar.
In addition to his Dartmouth position, guitarist Muratore teaches at Boston University, coordinates the guitar program at the All Newton (Mass.) Music School, and performs regularly as a solo recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician. As a solo artist he has appeared extensively throughout the United States, Canada,
Europe and Russia. He has collaborated with numerous chamber ensembles including Emmanuel Music, the
Spectrum Singers, Chorus Pro Musica, Alea III, Boston Musica Viva and Counterpoint. Recent appearances as concerto soloist have been with the Ridgefield Symphony, Vermont Symphony and Symphony by the Sea; and he has been the featured soloist at such international venues as the Academie Festival des Arcs (France), St.
Petersburg (Russia) Chamber Concerts, the Atelier International Concert Series in Paris and AIMS (American
Institute for Musical Studies, Graz, Austria). His most recent CD, Domenie, is a collaboration with accordionist
Roberto Cassan. His critically acclaimed solo CD, Shadow Box, was hailed by Britain's Classical Guitar magazine as "a fine recording, with serious intent", and his most recent offering, Noël: A Classical Guitar Christmas, has been listed by CD Baby as one of the top-selling Holiday-Classical albums for 2012.
The Dartmouth College Glee Club is a group of 40+ serious choral singers, led by Burkot since 1981. Its ever increasing repertory spans four centuries, with a distinguished performance history including many of the masterworks of choral-orchestral literature, fully staged Gilbert and Sullivan operettas with all-student casts, large and small a cappella works and the cherished songs of Dartmouth College. Performances have included the Requiem of Gabriel Fauré performed with orchestra, Six Madrigali of Morten Lauridsen, and a fully staged and choreographed performance of Purcell’s masterpiece, Dido and Aeneas performed with the
Arcadia Players, a baroque period instrument orchestra. In addition, the Glee Club regularly tours each spring break.

Burkot has been the director of the Dartmouth Glee Club since 1981. He was the recipient of the
Distinguished Lecturer award at Dartmouth in the spring of 2000 for his work in vocal instruction in the
Department of Music. As an operatic conductor, Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe has praised his work as
“first-rate, capable, and stylish” and Opera News has noted his conducting “sparkles with verve and sensitivity to the needs of singers.” Under Burkot’s tutelage many Dartmouth students have continued their musical studies at New England Conservatory, Boston University, Indiana University, Cincinnati
Conservatory, and others. His conducting studies included the Yale School of Music, the Aspen Music
Festival, and the Houston Grand Opera. In addition, he gives master classes in vocal repertoire at music schools and conservatories throughout the United States.
RELEVANT LINKS https://hop.dartmouth.edu/Online/nov14_glee http://www.johnmuratore.com/ https://hop.dartmouth.edu/Online/dartmouth_college_glee_club?menu_id=0D2669EA-465A-4124-8000-
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Download high-resolution photos: https://hop.dartmouth.edu/Online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScont ent::loadArticle::article_id=A14ACB33-679C-469F-9E07-
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CALENDAR LISTING:
Fauré's Requiem and more, by the Dartmouth College Glee Club
This 40-voiced choir, led by noted choral/orchestral conductor Louis Burkot, performs Fauré's Requiem with chamber orchestra and pipe organ; plus African American spirituals arranged by Moses Hogan (1957-2003); the short mass O Quam Gloriosum, by Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria; and selections from
Mario Castelneuvo-Tedesco’s ravishingly beautiful 1951 Romancero Gitano, with classical guitarist John
Muratore.
Sunday, November 9, 2 pm
Rollins Chapel, Dartmouth College, Hanover NH
$10, $5 Dartmouth students
Information: hop.dartmouth.edu or 603.646.2422
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Founded in 1962, the Hopkins Center for the Arts is a multi-disciplinary academic, visual and performing arts center dedicated to uncovering insights, igniting passions, and nurturing talents to help Dartmouth and the surrounding Upper Valley community engage imaginatively and contribute creatively to our world. Each year the Hop presents more than 300 live events and films by visiting artists as well as Dartmouth students and the Dartmouth community, and reaches more than 22,000 Upper Valley residents and students with outreach and arts education programs. After a celebratory 50 th -anniversary season in 2012-13, the Hop enters its second half-century with renewed passion for mentoring young artists, supporting the development of new work, and providing a laboratory for participation and experimentation in the arts.