72 Angels
Choral piece 72 Angels combines spiritual tradition and mysticism with ingenious and imaginative music. It will now be performed in Sweden for the first time, by the Swedish Radio Choir, just over a year after the first performance in Amsterdam, once again led by Peter Dijkstra and featuring the world-famous Raschèr Saxophone Quartet. Composer Lera Auerbach has carried the idea for the piece with her for over 20 years. The lyrics are inspired by Exodus, in which God parts the Red Sea for Moses and the Israelites so they can escape the pursuing Egyptian army. The piece consists of 72 brief, interwoven preludes and a final ‘Amen.’
According to Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah, Moses used God’s 72 names to invoke God to part the Red Sea, as told in Exodus. These 72 names, Shem HaMephorash, are the only lyrics of Lera Auerbach’s piece for choir and saxophone quartet. Auerbach grew up in a Jewish family in the Soviet city of Chelyabinsk by the Ural Mountains, but defected at the age of 18, and settled in New York. There, she studied composition and piano at the Manhattan School of Music, and at Juilliard, and has established herself as a versatile and inspiring artist. In addition to composing, she performs as a pianist, paints and makes sculptures, and has published collections of poems and essays. Auerbach was already composing music at the age of four, and made up stories that she told her parents. She doesn’t shy away from trying new approaches; a cappella opera The Blind, for instance, was performed to an audience whose eyes were covered. The Royal Danish Ballet commissioned ballet The Little Mermaid for the second centenary of H. C. Andersen’s birth. Like so much of Auerbach’s art, 72 Angels speaks straight to the heart, and invites each listener to make their own interpretation, and to listen both outwards and inwards.
72 Angels is a co-commission between the Swedish Radio Choir and the Netherlands Chamber Choir, Cracow Singers, Collegium Musicale, Chorwerband Steiermark (Vocalforum Graz), Zürcher Sing-Akademie, and Collegium vocale zu Franziskanern Luzern.
Participants
32 professional choristers make up the Swedish Radio Choir: a unique, dynamic instrument hailed by music-lovers and critics all over the world. The Swedish Radio Choir performs at Berwaldhallen, concert hall of the Swedish Radio, as well as on tours all over the country and the world. Also, they are heard regularly by millions of listeners on Swedish Radio P2, Berwaldhallen Play and globally through the EBU.
The award-winning Latvian conductor Kaspars Putniņš was appointed Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Choir in 2020. Since January 2019, its choirmaster is French orchestral and choral conductor Marc Korovitch, with responsibility for the choir’s vocal development.
The Swedish Radio Choir was founded in 1925, the same year as Sweden’s inaugural radio broadcasts, and gave its first concert in May that year. Multiple acclaimed and award-winning albums can be found in the choir’s record catalogue. Late 2023 saw the release of Kaspars Putniņš first album with the choir: Robert Schumann’s Missa sacra, recorded with organist Johan Hammarström.
Concert length: 1 h 30 min
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