KAILUA-KONA — The feeling of belonging and the reinforcement of togetherness defines tradition, and no tradition holds as much sentimentality as sharing music to welcome the Christmas season.
The value of nostalgia and celebration is what the Kona Choral Society will create with its performance, “Messiah + Trotta,” at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Ohana Court at the University of the Nations.
For the second concert of their annual holiday series, the 100-member chorus will join forces with the 21-member orchestra. Performing a two-part program, the show will include the premier work of up-and-coming composer Michael John Trotta and their highly anticipated G.F. Handel’s Messiah.
KCS Artistic Director and Conductor Susan McCreary Duprey said the combination of musical arrangements reflected not only on KCH’s “heavens/moon/stars” series theme, but brought together two pieces that would balance off of each other.
“When I was thinking of movements that would complement the Messiah, the Trotta piece explains the essence of nature and the heavens through phrasing and lyrics that have a deeply natural connection through beautiful imagery,” said Duprey, detailing Trotta’s multi-movement For a Breath of Ecstasy. “The show is a balance between old and new, tried and true, and up and coming.”
The purpose behind sharing new traditions through music — paired with the comfortable familiar songs such as the Messiah — has allowed Duprey to create a sense of harmony among the musical arrangements and audience sentiment, a captivating mix of fondness and excitement.
The opening number, For a Breath of Ecstasy, features lyrics written by early American poet Sara Teasdale.
Trotta, an American composer in his early 40s who published this work in 2018, was commissioned to write the work in celebration of the centennial of Teasdale’s first Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1918. Inspired by Teasdale’s Love Songs, an anthology of poems, he promotes her descriptive and passionate metric rhythm through vocals, oboe, and string quartet.
Trotta’s latest work will be performed for the first time in Hawaii at the KCS concert, which will showcase five out of the seven movements: Movement 1: “Wealth Enough for Me,” Movement 2: “Peace Flows Into Me,” Movement 5: “Spend All You Have on Loveliness,” Movement 6: “And I For You,” and Movement 7: “Let Me Love.”
Tickets are $25 for adults, $10 for students, and $50 for reserved seating. Tickets are available at konachoralsociety.org or at Kona Stories Book Store. Info: KonaChoralSociety@gmail.com.
