Bernardi / Concerto Scirocco / Voces Suaves - Lux Aeterna - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The University of South Dakota Chamber Singers under the direction of Dr. David Holdhusen proudly presents LUX AETERNA, a new album of choral works from Navona Records. As it's title suggests, this collection employs the power of music to shed light into the lives of listeners. Beautifully performed by the elite group of vocalists carefully selected from the university's student body, the album evokes a variety of musical genres, vocal colors, and historical styles, taking listeners on a spiritual journey through life's tribulations to ultimate redemption. LUX AETERNA is a meditation on universal human themes that listeners will find richly meaningful.

Vestiva not only our red thread throughout the album, referring to one of our favourite madrigal hits Vesti va i colli, but also a metaphorical motto Inchdressing upInch the music with colours, diminutions, trilli, accenti... (as the hills, the colli, in the original madrigal text are dressed up with flowers) in the balancing act of pure fl exibility and absolute punctuality or momentum - creating spoken InchwordsInch with a minimal, reduced instrumentation and without actual sung text. Working in this minimal, fragile and intimate instrumental setting with lute, harp and recorders while trying to reach maximum expression is an absolute challenge and pure joy.

Beginning with a trace of uncontrollable laughter that shifts into the driving atmosphere and unfolding elation of opening track InchHint and Omens,Inch Continuous Portrait is an album of strange hypnosis, punctuated by songs that venture quite far from the respective oeuvres of Cooper and Smith. The spry, playful layers of InchCalicoInch bounce against a steady thrum of rhythms and samples from everyday noises, while the dancing lightness of InchOutlook for the FutureInch is met with a storm of emotional resonance. Both tracks emerge as distinctively different directions for Inventions, and it is that very sense of exploration, pleasure, and ceremonial melancholia which informs the entire album from front to back. Inventions has always been the product of two friends who find comfort and inspiration in the genuine surprise of creating and combining sounds. Continuous Portrait whirls and hums like Cooper and Smith want us to invoke our inner playfulness and welcome a greater joy into our lives, if only for a moment. The result is a portrait that continuously embraces the completely foreign and familiar, and evolves with each successive listen.