Upcoming Concerts
During the 2024-25 Season of the Paris Choral Society, we will continue the celebrations of our 30th Anniversary when we will return to our first concert and Handel’s Messiah, performed with an Orchestra at the American Cathedral in Paris, along with the 30th Edition of our Messiah Sing-Along. In Spring 2025, we turn to the beauty and fragility of the earth with works which reflect the (changing) sounds of our planet. To round off the season, in Summer 2025 we will perform the Duruflé’s Requiem. You can find out more in our links below.
Sounds of the Earth
Thursday 20 March 2025 at 8.00pm
Saturday 22 March 2025 at 6.00pm
The American Cathedral
This A CAPPELLA CONCERT is dedicated to our blue planet. We will sing songs by composers who show reverence for our common heritage, the Earth, and bring to our attention the need to care and share it with all. Among them will be Charles Villiers Stanford, Jonathan Dove, Eriks Esenvalds, Benjamin Britten, and Alec Roth.
Humans have always been drawn to music. Earth soundscapes were our first sources of inspiration. Yet these natural soundscapes are being depleted: the music and languages of tribal and minority communities are vanishing, as well as whole species of insects, birds, whales and wolves, our singing brothers and sisters.
We have endangered, often now eradicated, our musical sources. Hence this concert to pay homage to our precious planet and all who inhabit it.
- C. V. Stanford: The Blue Bird
- Benjamin Britten: The Evening Primrose
- Ešenvalds: Stars
- Hubert Parry: At the round earth’s imagined corners
- Jonathan Dove: Who killed Cock Robin?
- Benjamin Britten: Advance Democracy
- Alec Roth: Earthrise Parts 1 + 3 (1: Man’s Drive to explore and exploit; 3: A plea)
Duruflé “Requiem”
Saturday 14 June 2025 at 9.00pm
St Etienne du Mont
Composed in 1947, DURUFLÉ’s REQUIEM is scored for solo baritone, mezzo-soprano, mixed choir, and organ.
At the heart of the REQUIEM’s musical language is plainsong, specifically the medieval melodies from the Mass for the Dead which Duruflé knew so well. Duruflé’s stated goal was to retain the fluid, elastic approach to rhythm that is characteristic of chant, with its constantly fluctuating groupings of twos and threes. The melodies are organically expanded and surrounded with impressionistic harmonies that at times seem to suggest “liturgical Debussy.” Duruflé wrote, “I have above all sought to enter into the particular style of Gregorian melodies and have been compelled to reconcile… the rhythm… with the requirements of modern [notation].”
Duruflé’s work will be preceded by “Take him, earth, for cherishing” by British composer Herbert Howells after the death of US President John F. Kennedy which takes similar themes, linking life, death and hope.
We are thrilled to be singing this concert in the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, where Duruflé was titular organist when the Requiem was composed.
