Colin Britt

This coming Thursday and Saturday, I will have the incredible honor of conducting C4‘s performance of “Cantos Sagrados,” a powerful and disturbing work by James MacMillan.

As I’ve studied, rehearsed, and prepared this work, I can think of few other pieces that have resonated so emotionally with me. MacMillan’s gift for combining new and old texts, something modeled so brilliantly in the War Requiem, holds up a revealing and damning lens to the injustice in this world, and although the subject for the piece is the Argentinean Dirty War from 40 years ago, somehow the message seems urgently modern and relevant (and perhaps a caution against the growing sense of “us versus them” that pervades the current political landscape).

The other works on this concert, conducted brilliantly by my colleagues, include pieces by Karen Siegel, Perry Townsend, Hayes Biggs, Tarik O’Regan, Jamie Klenetsky Fay, Mario Gullo, and Arvo Pärt. James Kennerley is the magnificent organist (whom I understand last played the piece with the composer conducting – no pressure!). I hope you will be able to attend.