Hodgson Singers and University Chorus Concert

This long-awaited choral program, entitled, “Hard Times Come Again No More” will feature both the University Chorus and the UGA Hodgson Singers.  The University Chorus (JD Burnett, artistic director/conductor) will be conducted by DMA conducting student, Sarah Frook Gallo in a program spanning three centuries of choral/orchestral repertoire and featuring Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s rarely performed Hiob Cantata, a Bach-inspired Romantic cantata on texts from the book of Job, written in 1831.  Works by Giovanni Martini and living composer, Michael John Trotta round out this first half of the program with texts expressing urgent pleas for divine assistance and those offering resounding hope. 

The Hodgson Singers will perform the second half of the concert under the direction of John D. Boyd UGA Foundation Professor of Music, Daniel Bara.  The concert will take place exactly 609 days after the choir’s last public concert as a full ensemble on March 5, 2020, and will showcase several new pieces including the profoundly yearning, Agnus Dei by Cuban composer, Ernesto Herrera, alongside works by living American composers Elaine Hagenberg, Reena Esmail, and Shawn Kirchner.  In addition to themes of supplication and longing, the concert will include pieces offering thanksgiving for the new day in a pairing of Kurt Weill’s poignant and jazzy Shabbat blessing, Kiddush, and Dan Forrest’s i thank you God for most this amazing day, featuring UGA student instrumentalists. A triptych of folksong selections spanning the cultures of India, the country of Georgia, and the Philippines will offer variety of style and timbre before the program closes with Sarah Quartel’s Sing, My Child and Moses Hogan’s intimate and rousing arrangement of This Little Light of Mine.  UGA violin professor, Levon Armbartsumian, makes a cameo appearance as violin soloist in Shawn Kirchner’s lush and evocative arrangement of the Stephen Foster classic song, Hard Times Come Again No More.