Concert is set for Saturday, April 5th at South Main Baptist Church
WHAT: The Grammy® Award-winning Houston Chamber Choir presents From Darkness to Light, its first spring concert, conducted by Artistic Director Designate Dr. Betsy Cook Weber. Joining the Choir on Saturday, April 5th at South Main Baptist Church is special guest Loop 38, a cutting-edge Houston-based new music ensemble known for performing works by local, emerging, and renowned composers and building culturally relevant musical experiences.
The program features Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere mei, Deus, famously transcribed from memory by Mozart after hearing it in the Sistine Chapel. Centuries later, in 1989, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt set the same text in one of his most dramatic works. Moving from darkness to light, the concert transitions through a Latvian Plaudite, Psallite and American spirituals, including Thomas Dorsey’s Precious Lord, concluding with Ēriks Ešenvalds’ stunning arrangement of Amazing Grace.
WHO: The Houston Chamber Choir consists of 24 professional musicians of diverse backgrounds who hail from some of the finest music programs in the country. Members of the Choir have performed professionally across the United States and internationally, singing in festivals, operas, concerts, church choirs and in musical theater.
WHEN: Saturday, April 5, 2025, at 7:30 p.m. CT
WHERE: South Main Baptist Church, 4100 Main St., Houston, TX 77002
COST: $10 – $45 for single tickets. Go to www.houstonchamberchoir.org/2024-2025-season/from-darkness-to-light.
MORE: There is ample free parking in the church lot.
Check out our website at HoustonChamberChoir.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Link to photos here
Photo credit: Jeff Grass Photography
About Houston Chamber Choir
Led by Founder and Artistic Director Robert Simpson and Artistic Director Designate Dr. Betsy Cook Weber, the Houston Chamber Choir is a Grammy® Award-winning ensemble of 24 professional musicians selected from the finest choral artists in our region. “One of the jewels of the city’s cultural scene” (Houston Chronicle), the Houston Chamber Choir has brought Houston an array of choral works for 30 years ranging from early music and Baroque masterpieces, including the city’s first period instrument performance of Bach’s B Minor Mass, to the rarely heard Third Sacred Concert by Duke Ellington, and performances and premieres of works by today’s leading composers, many with Houston ties — David Ashley White, Christopher Theofanidis, Dominick DiOrio, J. Todd Frazier, Mark Buller, Karim Al-Zand, Pierre Jalbert, Marcus Maroney, and Daniel Knaggs.
The Houston Chamber Choir’s awards include Chorus America’s Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence and the American Prize. They were one of 24 international ensembles selected to appear at the 2020 World Symposium on Choral Music in New Zealand. The Houston Chamber Choir has appeared at national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, the American Guild of Organists, and Chorus America. Tours have taken them to Mexico, Wales, and the Northeastern United States where they performed at Trinity Church, Wall Street in New York City, and Yale University at the invitation of the Institute of Sacred Music.
The Choir’s recording of the complete choral works of French composer Maurice Duruflé was awarded the 2019 Grammy® Award for Best Choral Performance. In January 2022, Signum Classics released its newest recording of compositions by acclaimed British composer Bob Chilcott. For this recording, the Houston Chamber Choir is joined by the Treble Choir of Houston directed by Marianna Parnas-Simpson. The title work, Circlesong, is a 13-movement composition for two choirs, two pianos, and percussion based on indigenous poetry of North America.
About Loop 38
Loop38 is a boundary-pushing, artist-driven new music ensemble based in Houston, Texas, that aims to build community around innovative, stimulating, and culturally relevant musical experiences. Since their debut in 2016, Loop38 has performed a wide range of works by local composers, young and upcoming voices, and globally established artists. Frequenting a variety of neighborhoods throughout Houston, Loop38 has performed in venues such as the Rothko Chapel, the Turrell Skyspace at Rice University, the Galveston Artists Residency, the Silos at Sawyer Yards, the Live Oak Friends Meetinghouse, MATCH, and the Archway Gallery.
Essential to Loop38 is the desire to curate unique programs through collaborations with composers and artists of other disciplines. Past partnerships have involved the Performing Arts Houston, Houston Contemporary Dance Company, Rice University Theater Department, Apollo Chamber Players, Kinetic Ensemble, WindSync, the University of Houston’s Blaffer Art Museum, Musiqa, and several artists-in-residence at the Sawyer Yards.
