One of Tucson’s most venerable choirs is looking into the universe as it closes out its 2024-25 season while one of the city’s oldest orchestra’s focus is more down to earth.
Alternate views of a singular message: Music has no earthly boundaries.
That’s sure to resonate when Ryan Phillips leads his Arizona Repertory Singers in “Sun, Moon and Stars” this weekend. The concert celebrates the wonder and endless beauty of the cosmos through a mix of lullabies, evening songs, sacred music and contemporary classics.
Arizona Repertory Singers explores the cosmos as it closes out its 2024-25 season.
The program covers six centuries of choral music through a dozen songs that explore our relationship with the cosmos throughout recorded and unrecorded history.
Monteverdi’s moody Renaissance madrigal “Ecco Mormorar L’onde,” with its serene and bright tempos, is one of the oldest works on the program that includes Dolly Parton’s “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” and Tony Bennett’s “Fly Me to the Moon” alongside Josef Rheinberger’s sacred motet “Abendlied” (Evening Song) and Brahms’s “O Schöne Nacht!” (Oh Lovely Night!)
Eric Whitacre explores slumber in “The Seal Lullaby,” based on Rudyard Kipling’s poetry. and the simply named “Sleep,” with lyrics based on poetry from Charles Anthony Silvestri.
Arizona Repertory Singers, one of Tucson’s longest running choirs, will cover six centuries of choral music through a dozen songs that explore our relationship with the cosmos.
Canadian composer Sarah Quartel’s “Sing, My Child” and American composer Adolphus Hilstork’s “Nocturne” give us a sense of the largeness of the cosmos, which is kind of what Phillips has set out do as he closes the choir’s season.
Arizona Repertory Singers will perform the concert at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 26, and 3 p.m. May 3 at Christ Church United Methodist, 666 N. Craycroft Road; and 4 p.m. May 4 at St. Mark Catholic Church, 2727 W. Tangerine Road in Oro Valley.
Tickets are $22 in advance through arsingers.org, or $25 at the door. Students with ID are admitted free.
The Arizona Repertory Singers’ concert celebrates the cosmos through a mix of lullabies, evening songs, sacred music and contemporary classics.
“Water in the Desert”
Songs from a trio of popular Disney films themed around water open the Civic Orchestra of Tucson‘s 49th season finale “Water in the Desert.”
We’re thinking the desert part of the equation could be inspired by Mendelssohn’s “The Hebrides” Overture, which the composer wrote after a visit to a cave on the Scottish island of Staffa.
Civic Orchestra of Tucson bassists, from left, Ethan Klassen, Dave Shurtleff, Jamie Matthews and principal Teresa Christy will be part of the orchestra’s season finale this weekend.
Or perhaps Music Director Keun Oh was thinking more along the lines of the desert surrounding Reid Park, where the orchestra will perform the concert on May 4.
The orchestra will perform the concert Sunday, April 27, and May 4 in Tucson and May 3 in Green Valley.
“Water in the Desert” opens with “Victory at Sea” composed by Richard Rodgers and Robert Russell Bennett for the 1952 documentary chronicling the U.S. Navy’s role in World War II.
The program includes Henry Mancini’s “Moon River,” “Frozen” from the Disney film and highlights from the Disney films “Moana” and “Pirates of the Caribbean.”
Joshua Parker, a student and trombonist at The Gregory School who plays in the Tucson Philharmonia Youth Orchestra, will join the orchestra for Hindemith’s Sonata for Trombone and Piano at its concert on Sunday, April 27, at Catalina Foothills High School, 4300 E. Sunrise Drive.
Joshua landed a spot on the orchestra’s stage after taking first place in the senior winds division of the orchestra’s 2025 Young Artists Competition.
In addition to the Philharmonia, Joshua is part of the Tucson Jazz Institute and the Troopers Drum and Bugle Corps.
At the Green Valley concert on May 3, brothers Nathaniel and Colin Friesen — the Friesen Duo — will perform Handel-Halvorsen’s “Passacaglia” as winners of the competition’s ensemble division. Nathaniel plays violin and Colin plays cello and both brothers play hockey for the Tucson Roadrunners high school team.
Sunday’s concert begins at 3 p.m. The concert May 4 at Reid Park’s DeMeester Outdoor Performance Center, 900 S. Randolph Way, begins at 7 p.m. The Green Valley concert May 3 at the West Center Auditorium, 1111 S. Green Valley Drive, begins at 3 p.m.
Admission to the Tucson concerts is free; admission for the Green Valley concert is $15 for Green Valley Rec members, $20 for non-members through Green Valley Rec, gvrec.org.
