Chicago, IL – For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, celebrated Chicago choral groups Constellation Men’s Ensemble and La Caccina will come together for two performances celebrating the resilience of the human spirit, our connection to the divine, and the ways in which we all need and instill hope in each other.
La Caccina Artistic Director Carling FitzSimmons, who will conduct the performances, says the two choral groups had been planning to sing Kevin Puts’ “To Touch The Sky” before the pandemic, but found the text, which centers on humankind’s search for our place in the cosmos and our connection to divinity, even more powerful and relatable in light of it. “Everybody deals with some sort of faith-shaking moment,” FitzSimmons says. “That truth led me to think, what if the Puts piece could be in dialogue with other pieces? What if there was this sense of an answer coming, a response out there that just hadn’t been sung yet? So I programmed the second half to act as a mirror.”
The concert’s second half offers hopeful responses to each section of the Puts work, featuring pieces by Elizabeth Alexander, Kathleen Allan, Jeffrey L. Ames, Saunder Choi, and Caroline Shaw. The result: a narrative journey that will suspend the audience in the moment, together. “I’m a storyteller at heart and so I hope that our audience members will experience this concert in the way they might experience a good book,” FitzSimmons says. “I think the audience will also have something to discuss when they leave and that’s the most satisfying type of art to me, when a piece gets into your soul. Especially after the past two years, there’s just something primal and necessary about experiencing and making art together. It’s also a collaboration between the performers and the audience. I hope that this concert makes people feel seen and known and loved.”
Constellation Men’s Ensemble and La Caccina are two award-winning vocal ensembles committed to programming meaningful concert experiences in the Chicago area.
WHEN & WHERE:
Saturday, March 5 at 7:30 p.m. at Wicker Park Lutheran Church – Chicago
Sunday, March 6 at 4:00 p.m. at Alice Millar Chapel, Northwestern University – Evanston
TICKETS: $20-25, students 18 years and younger free with student ID Purchase tickets here or at constellationensemble.org. For those who prefer to watch remotely, a private livestream link to the March 6 show is also available for purchase.
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