Sunday Concert at Grace Celebrates Benjamin Britten

Grace Community Music will celebrate the 100th birthday of composer Benjamin Britten with a 3 p.m. Sunday concert at Grace Church, 4 Madison Ave.

Combined choirs of Grace will perform Britten's cantata "Rejoice in the Lamb" and the complete children’s song cycle "Friday Afternoons," with children’s choirs and soloists, as well as other works including selections from "Metamorphoses" with oboist Teddy Love. Admission is by freewill donation at the door.

Grace’s combined choirs of children and adults will open the concert with the "Jubilate in C" and the "Festival Te Deum," with assistant organist Eric Stroud at the organ, according to an announcement for the event.

Love will perform two movements from the unusual and seldom performed "Six Metamorphoses after Ovid" for solo oboe: "I. Pan- who played upon his reed pipe which was Syrinx, his beloved," and "IV. Bacchus-at whose feasts is heard the noise of gaggling women's tattling tongues and shouting out of boys."

The major work, a short cantata of 12 minutes, will be Britten's "Rejoice in the Lamb."

Britten, perhaps England's greatest 20th century composer, is especially known for his vocal works and for choosing unusual texts. "Rejoice in the Lamb" draws from the texts of Christopher Smart, a high church Anglican 18th century poet who wrote a long free-verse manuscript, "Jubilate Agno," while he was locked in a madhouse for “religious mania," the announcement says.

The organist for this work is Brian Harlow, and soloists include Donna Ward of Madison, Caitlyn Roper of New Providence, Greg Paradis of Morristown and Seth Ruggles Hiler of Montclair. 

The concert concludes with a charming song cycle, "Friday Afternoons." This is an early work, written for a boy’s prep school where Britten’s brother was headmaster.

Music Director Dr. Anne Matlack said she has always wanted to do this whole set because the boys’ choir rehearsed on Friday afternoons—as do her kids.

Children will sing some movements, small groups including Gargoyles (teen boys), junior high singers, Daughters of Zion (high school girls) will sing some, and soloists including Eleanor Wroath and George Hayman of Madison, Marthe McClinden of Morristown and Ted Roper of New Providence will sing others. A reception will follow with birthday cake.

Matlack, organist and choirmaster at Grace Church for 22 years, and conductor of the acclaimed Harmonium Choral Society, has a B.A. in music from Yale University, and a M.M. and D.M.A. in choral conducting from University of Cincinnati College - Conservatory of Music.

Grace Community Music was founded by donations at the wedding of Matlack and Jabez Van Cleef, to showcase local musicians, build a sense of community, and open the church to the greater Morris County audience. To receive a complete flyer by mail or email contactamatlack@gracemadison.org, or call 973-377-0106 ext. 17.