Reincarnations

NWCS completes its 2026-27 Concert Season with “Reincarnations”, a program of choral masterworks which explores the ways in which music can seem to defy the passage of time. At the heart of the program is Samuel Barber’s “Reincarnations” – a three-movement work for unaccompanied chorus composed between 1939 and 1940 which sets to music words of the Irish poet Anthony Raftery, who lived about a century prior and was himself said to be ‘the last of the wandering bards’. Another cornerstone of the program is Jeffrey Van’s “A Procession Winding Around Me”, a collection of poetry of Walt Whitman set to music by the contemporary American composer Jeffrey Van. Unusually, this work features the guitar as an accompaniment – and indeed, duet partner – to the chorus, lending a light and intimate color to this vivid and impactful music. Also featured on this program are works of Robert Pearsall, Gerald Finzi, William H. Harris, and others.