30th season of the cathedral's Madeleine Festival of the Arts & Humanities begins April 8

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The Madeleine Festival of the Arts & Humanities will feature the International Children's Choir April 29.

SALT LAKE CITY — For its upcoming 30th season, the Madeleine Festival of the Arts & Humanities will feature five free performances by a variety of local guests and artists at the Cathedral of the Madeline.

“Here at the cathedral, we follow the classical European tradition where the cathedral was the center of the community for worship, Good Samaritan works and the arts,” said Fr. Martin Diaz, rector of the Cathedral of the Madeleine. “Opening the doors with the cultural arts is our way of giving back to the greater community that helped us fund the renovation of the cathedral back in 1992 and 1993.”

The festival will kick off on April 8 with a performance by the American Festival Chorus and Orchestra. The chorus of more than 200 singers is a combination of Utah State University faculty, students and singers from communities within a 90-mile radius of Logan. The 65-member professional orchestra is composed of faculty from USU’s music department, USU students and professional musicians from the region.

As a tribute to the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, AFCO and guests will perform two works by British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. The first, the oratorio “Sancta Civitas” (The Holy City) was written at the close of the war by Williams, who had served as a medic during the conflict. With text taken from the Book of Revelation, it speaks of the destruction of Babylon (evil) and of the descent of the Holy City to the earth.

“It represented his hope that out of the destruction of World War I a new world filled with peace would emerge,” said AFCO founder and conductor Craig Jessop, who previously served as director of the U.S. Air Force Singing Sergeants in Washington, D.C.; as conductor of the U.S. Air Forces Band in Europe; and as director of the Maryland Choral Society.

While “Sancta Civitas” is popular, it is rarely heard because it requires a large symphonic choir, a 30- to 40-voice chamber choir and a treble children’s choir to be performed, Jessop said.

That evening, AFCO will join with the Lux Singers, a religious choral organization composed of four different ensembles, and the Cache Children’s Choir to perform the piece, which will be conducted by Jessop, who received the Madeleine Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts and Humanities in 2013.

A second piece, the cantata “Dona Nobis Pacem” (Plea for Peace), was written by Williams in 1936 as Nazism began to take hold in Germany. The work takes part of its text from three of the poems of Walt Whitman, who served as a medic himself during the Civil War.

“There’s this wonderful tie between these two profoundly beautiful pieces,” Jessop said. “In today’s world, this plea for peace is as strong now as ever before.”

Special guest conductor Stephen Cleobury, director of music of King’s College, Cambridge, will conduct the cantata. The Kings College Choir performed at both Utah State and the cathedral in 2017. Also included in the festival this year will be an April 22 screening and discussion of several KUER videos with RadioWest and RadioWest Films executive producer Doug Fabrizio, along with director of photography Kelsie Moore and producer Elaine Clark. The videos will be “Closing a Monastery,” which documents the closing of the Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity in Huntsville; a segment of the “Taste One Moment” series that examines Handel’s “Messiah;” and “Sanctuary” the story of Vickie, a Honduran woman about to be deported who sought sanctuary in a local Unitarian church.

On April 29, the International Children’s Choir will take to the stage to present a selection of music from around the world. Other festival performances will be an April 15 collaborative effort of the Rosenberg, Price, Campbell Trios and a May 6 performance by Two Shields Native American dance company.

2018 Madeleine Festival  of the Arts & Humanities

Sunday, April 8: The American Festival Chorus And Orchestra

Sunday, April 15: The Rosenberg, Price, Campbell Trio

Sunday, April 22: KUER short films

Sunday, April 29:The International Children’s Choir

Sunday, May 6: Two Shields Native American dance company