Carmina Jehanna

Carl Dreyer’s silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) combined with Richard Einhorn’s cantata Voices of Light (1994) was a quite memorable and moving experience in which to sing. I think it could also have been called Carmina JehannaSongs for Joan – with (as in Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana) often-fortississimo choral Latin, olde-tyme versions of one or more modern languages, and, according to the programme notes, Joan’s personal associations apparently being less “saintly” than one might have expected. I also think the cantata (or at least several key parts of it) would have worked just as well as a “progressive rock opera.” The performance featured not only our Grand Philharmonic Choir and the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, but also my early-2000s Elora Festival Singers’ “peeps” and others in the TACTUS Vocal Ensemble, all conducted by Mark Vuorinen.

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