The North Coast Chorale is always looking for new singers and welcomes new members in our community-based choir. Go to our About Us page to learn more rehearsals and membership, but here’s the powerful music we will be performing on May 21 and 22nd in Astoria: Karl Jenkins’s The Armed Man – A Mass for Peace and Srul Irving Glick’s The Hour Has Come.
Welsh composer, Karl Jenkins, The Armed Man wrote this anti-war piece based on the Catholic Mass. It is interspersed with text from other religious and historical sources, principally the 15th-century folk song L’homme armé in the first and last movements. There is the Islamic call to prayer, quotes from Psalms and Revelation in the Bible as well as quotes from British writers Dryden, Swift, Kipling and Tennyson. One of Jenkins’ most popular works, this piece starts with military-style music representing the descent into war and ends the mass with hope for peace. Various orchestral instruments and a diverse array of percussion provide the backdrop for the singers.
Prominent Canadian composer, Srul Irving Glick wrote The Hour Has Come in 1985, a choral symphony set to Poem No. 6 by Carole Leckner.