_edited.jpg)
CONCERT SERIES
26 | 27
SHADOW & SPLENDOR
SEATTLE
Subscribe and save! Subscribers enjoy a 10% discount and front-section seating.
.png)
SUNDAY, OCT 25, 2026 at 3:00 PM
Holy Rosary Catholic Church
4139 42nd Ave SW, Seattle
Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and John Taverner shaped the sound of English sacred music during one of history's most turbulent periods of religious change. This collection of motets moves between grief and hope: Byrd's Tristitia et anxietas gives voice to sorrow, his Miserere nostri pleads for mercy, Taverner's Gaude plurimum answers with joy, and Arvo Pärt's Da pacem Domine asks for peace.
That weight resolves in Tallis's Spem in alium — forty voices in eight choirs, surrounding the listener from every side. Its text is the program's title made sound: Spem in alium nunquam habui praeter in te — "I have never put my hope in any other but in thee."
Thomas TALLIS: Loquebantur variis linguis
John TAVERNER: Mater Christi sanctissima
William BYRD: Tristitia et anxietas
John TAVERNER: Gaude plurimum
William BYRD: Magnificat
Thomas TALLIS: Absterge Domine
Arvo PÄRT: Da pacem Domine
Thomas TALLIS: Miserere nostri
Thomas TALLIS: Spem in alium
This program is in memory of Mel Belding.
SATURDAY, FEB 6, 2027 at 1:00 PM
Holy Rosary Catholic Church
4139 42nd Ave SW, Seattle
This program offers a glimpse into the sound world of the Sistine Chapel through four composers whose music shaped its tradition for generations: Palestrina, Lassus, Victoria, and Allegri. It features two movements from Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli — a mass that, according to legend, single-handedly saved polyphony from being banned by the Church. The centerpiece of the program is Allegri's Miserere, performed in The Sixteen's "Evolutions" edition — tracing the piece from its original framework through Renaissance-style embellishment — alongside a modern response to the same text by British composer Alexander Campkin.
Giovanni Pierluigi da PALESTRINA: Tu es Petrus
PALESTRINA: Tribulationes civitatum
Orlande de LASSUS: Timor et tremor
LASSUS: Laudate Dominum omnes gentes a12
Tomás Luis de VICTORIA: Ave Maria a8
PALESTRINA: "Gloria" from Missa Papae Marcelli
Gregorio ALLEGRI: Miserere (Evolutions)
Alexander CAMPKIN: Miserere
VICTORIA: Judas mercator pessimus
PALESTRINA: "Credo" from Missa Papae Marcelli
).png)
SATURDAY, NOV 28, 2026 at 8:00 PM
Holy Rosary Catholic Church
4139 42nd Ave SW, Seattle
SUNDAY, NOV 29, 2026 at 3:00 PM
Town Hall Seattle
1119 8th Ave, Seattle, WA 98101
The program pairs traditional carols with modern settings of the same source: Praetorius's Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming alongside Sandström's Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, two settings of the same rose hymn centuries apart. Holst's In the Bleak Midwinter is followed by Gjeilo's arrangement of the same carol. Silent Night arrives first in its original German as Stille Nacht, then again in world-premiere arrangements by Kerensa Briggs and Ēriks Ešenvalds. Whitacre's Lux Aurumque and Pärt's Nunc Dimittis provide a moment of stillness.
The largest work on the program is Rutter's Dancing Day, for treble voices and harp — a 25-minute cycle weaving together eight traditional carols, including Coventry Carol, Personent Hodie, and Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day, into a single continuous arc.
arr. Michael PRAETORIUS: Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming
arr. Jan SANDSTRÖM: Es ist ein Ros entsprungen
Eric WHITACRE: Lux Aurumque
Arvo PÄRT: Nunc Dimittis
Franz Xaver GRUBER: Stille Nacht
arr. Kerensa BRIGGS: Silent Night
Herbert HOWELLS: A Spotless Rose
arr. David WILLCOCKS: Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day
John RUTTER: What Sweeter Music
Gustav HOLST: In the Bleak Midwinter
arr. Ola GJEILO: In the Bleak Midwinter
John RUTTER: Dancing Day
arr. Ēriks EŠENVALDS: Silent Night
SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 2027 at 7:30 PM
Trinity Parish Church
609 8th Ave, Seattle
SUNDAY, APRIL 11, 2027 at 3:00 PM
Holy Rosary Catholic Church
4139 42nd Ave SW, Seattle
The title comes from David's lament for his son Absalom, a verse composers have set for centuries after the death of a child or prince. That grief sits at the heart of this program, framed by music of devotion on either side. The program opens with The Divine: Górecki's Totus Tuus, written for Pope John Paul II's 1987 visit to Poland, alongside Pärt's The Woman with the Alabaster Box and I Am the True Vine, two examples of Pärt's quintessential tintinnabuli style. Górecki's Amen closes the set.
Shock & Solace turns toward grief and its aftermath. MacMillan's A Child's Prayer, written in memory of the children killed at Dunblane in 1996, sets a prayer the composer remembered from his own childhood. At its center, two settings of the same text 400 years apart: Weelkes's When David Heard, composed in the English tradition of mourning a fallen prince, and Eric Whitacre's — written for a friend whose teenage son had just died, and the composer's most personal work. Vaughan Williams's Rest, a setting of Christina Rossetti, closes the program.
The Divine
Henryk GÓRECKI: Totus Tuus
Arvo PÄRT: The Woman with the Alabaster Box
Arvo PÄRT: I Am the True Vine
Henryk GÓRECKI: Amen
Shock & Solace
Paweł ŁUKASZEWSKI: Ave Maria
James MACMILLAN: A Child’s Prayer
Thomas WEELKES: When David Heard
Eric WHITACRE: When David Heard
Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Rest
SUBSCRIBERS WILL RECEIVE TICKETS VIA EMAIL A FEW WEEKS BEFORE EACH CONCERT. YOU MAY ALSO MAIL IN A CHECK TO: THE BYRD ENSEMBLE - 4722 FAUNTLEROY WAY SW #123, SEATTLE, WA 98116.