SFWE News:

The Santa Fe Women’s Ensemble’s 45th season treats audiences to “Music Above and Beyond” that will inspire and uplift your hearts and minds. This Mother’s Day weekend, join Music Director Linda Raney, the Ensemble’s 16 singers, trumpeter Jan McDonald and pianist Bill Epstein for an elevating and heartwarming musical experience.

The selections for their spring concerts include pieces written in a variety of musical eras, from Francesca Caccini’s “O vive rose,” composed in the 1600s, to the performances’ highlight, the world premiere of this year’s thrilling new commission, “Homecoming.”

Internationally renowned New Mexican composer Z. Randall Stroope set poetry from an unknown New Mexico poet from the first quarter of the 20th century, and the dramatic creation features voices, piano and trumpet.

The spring repertory includes Samuel Gordon’s “Antiphon and Motets for the Ladymass”; “Ad Astra” by Jacob Narverud; “Two Andalusian Songs” by Stephen Paulus; African American spirituals “I got a robe” arr. by Eurydice V. Osterman, “My Lord What a Morning” arr. by Clifton J. Noble, Jr., and “Let me fly” arr. by Mark Butler; “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emma Lou Diemer; “In This Sweet Summertime” by Kim André Arnesen; and closes powerfully with “The New Colossus” by Kevin A. Memley.

Concerts are at First Presbyterian Church at 3 p.m., Saturday, May 9 and Sunday, May 10. General admission tickets are $30 in advance at www.sfwe.org, $35 at the door if available. Tickets for students and teachers, military and veterans are $12.

This project is supported in part by New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Santa Fe Women’s Ensemble. Courtesy photo