A SEASON THAT GOES OUT IN FLAMES (IN THE BEST WAY)

Chamber Singers of Iowa City bass Austen Wilson has been writing about the ensemble for the Iowa City Press-Citizen all season, and his latest column — published this week — turns his attention to where it all comes together: our final concert of the year, Into Full Flame, on June 7 at 3:00 PM at the Voxman Music Building Concert Hall.

Link to Austen Wilson's Press-Citizen article

The program is, in a word, ambitious. The ensemble closes out its first season under Dr. Alex Koppel with three works plus orchestra that collectively span centuries, continents, and the full range of what choral music can do.

The concert opens with Mozart's Veni Sancte Spiritus, written when the composer was just twelve years old — and already astonishing. From there, the program takes a quieter, more interior turn with Pēteris Vasks' Dona Nobis Pacem, a meditative work for chorus, strings, and organ in which a single Latin phrase — "grant us peace" — carries the entire emotional weight.

“It's music that doesn't let you off the hook — and that's exactly the point.”

The evening's centerpiece is Ralph Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem, a full cantata that draws on Mass texts, Scripture, Walt Whitman, and a nineteenth-century British statesman. Wilson's article digs into the fascinating tension at the heart of this work: a piece that bears the name of peace while spending much of its runtime confronting the devastation of war. It's music that doesn't let you off the hook — and that's exactly the point. As Wilson notes, the final chord resolves toward peace, but not quite all the way there.

Read the full column for a thoughtful guide to what you'll experience on June 7. (Note that the article is behind a Press-Citizen paywall for some readers.)

GRAB YOUR TICKETS for Into Full Flame. General admission $20. Students are free (ticket required).