Westminster Williamson Voices presents Spiritual Lights November 15

Westminster Williamson Voices, conducted by James Jordan, will present a concert titled “Spiritual Lights” on Saturday, November 15 at 8 p.m. in Bristol Chapel on the campus of Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, N.J.

The program will explore the spiritual experience through the journey of chant, highlighting Arvo Pärt’s choral masterwork Salve Regina. The program will also include excerpts from Whitbourn’s Missa Carolae and works by Poulenc, Stanford, Duruflé and Bruckner, as well as premieres of works by Matthews and LaVoy.

The Westminster Williamson Voices has established itself as a voice of composers of our time, and it has been acclaimed for its creative programming and collaborations with other art forms. The ensemble has also assembled an impressive discography. Its newest recording, Annelies, by James Whitbourn was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2013.  Gramophone has described that recording as “exhilarating” and praised the ensemble’s singing “with a precision and finesse normally found in the best of the UK’s large chamber choirs.”   London’s Guardian newspaper wrote of the recording “ The performance … is well prepared and palpably committed as befits a premiere recording.” It has recorded more than 30 choral masterworks on the Teaching Music through Performance CD collection that is used by conductors around the world. The ensemble can also be seen and heard in the DVD The Empowered Choral Rehearsal: Choral Masterclasses with Simon Carrington.

One of the country’s leading choral artists, James Jordan is professor of conducting and senior conductor at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, where he conducts the critically acclaimed Westminster Williamson Voices and Westminster Schola Cantorum, and teaches undergraduate and graduate choral conducting. Critics on both sides of the Atlantic have praised his recorded performances. The American Record Review wrote that his choir “is … to please the fussiest choral connoisseur” “skillful and shining,” “glowing,” “supremely accomplished” with a “tone that produces a wide range of effects from vocal transparency to rich, full-throated glory.” Gramophone described his conducting as “intimate and forceful choral artistry,” with tone that is “controlled and silken in sustained phrases as they are vibrantly sonorous in extroverted material.”  Choir and Organ wrote about his recording of Annelies, “Jordan’s instinctive understanding of the score makes this a profound and emotionally charged experience.”

Admission is $20 for adults and $15 for students and seniors. Tickets can be purchased through the Box Office at (609) 921-2663 or online at www.rider.edu/arts.