Esprit Orchestra presents Hallelujah Sim.

Program:
Chris Paul Harman: Coyote Soul (2011)
Chris Paul Harman: Blur (1997, rev. 2017)
Tristan Keuris: Sinfonia (1974)
Ben Nobuto: Hallelujah Sim.* (2024)
(Elmer Iseler Singers & Concreamus, vocal ensembles)
Poul Ruders: Tundra** (1990)
 
*North American premiere, co-commissioned by Esprit Orchestra & Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo
**North American premiere

Structured like a game, Nobuto’s Hallelujah Sim. sets a choir of 72 singers with simple rules for progressing through levels of play. It creates “a dreamlike scenario where old traditions and symbols—hallelujahs, choirs, the Royal Albert Hall—gain strange new intensity,” looping, shifting, starting and stopping as if the music were writing itself in real time. Harman’s Coyote Soul blends lightness, colour, humour, and a pop tune known beyond the classical world. Ruders’ Tundra evokes the far North’s essence with a depiction of nature’s full sonic power.