Musical rounds and other works are featured in Yale Camerata’s first concert this season

In its first concert this season, the Yale Camerata will perform five original musical rounds from a song cycle created by two Yale alumni along with an Emmy Award-winning composer.

As part of its concert on Sunday, Nov. 13, titled “Darkness and Light,” the Camerata will perform the rounds with singers from the Morse Chorale of the Yale Music in the School Initiative. The concert will take place at 5 p.m. at Church of the Redeemer, 185 Cold Spring St., New Haven. Admission is free.

The five rounds being sung at the concert are from a song cycle of 21 titled “The Book of Rounds: 21 Songs of Grace,” which has just been released as a recording by the October Project. The members of the October Project are Julie Flanders ’81, who wrote the lyrics for the rounds, her Yale College roommate Marina Belica ’81, and Emmy Award-winning composer Emil Adler, who composed the music for “The Book of Rounds.” The October Project drew on Yale’s a cappella tradition to record “The Book of Rounds” on campus, singing with students and alumni from such groups as the Whiffenpoofs and Redhot & Blue. The arrangements for the recording were created by Keiji Ishiguri ’10, former pitch of the Whiffs and Redhot & Blue.

Choirs around the country are now singing the rounds, including the Whiffenpoofs, who have made one ballad, titled “Someone,” part of its regular repertoire. The October Project will be in attendance at the Nov. 13 Yale Camerata performance.

In addition to the rounds, the Yale Camerata will perform Alfred Schnittke’s “Requiem”; Natalie Dietterich’s “Conversations with Strangers”; “Brahms’ “Warum ist das Licht gegeben?”; Ola Gjeilo’s “Dark Night of the Soul”; and Jan Harmon’s “Good Friend.”

The five rounds from “The Book of Rounds” being performed include “Rain,” “Home,” Grace,” “Believe,” and “Joy.” The entire set of 21 rounds aims to create for the performer and listener a meditative state akin to the effect of singing a lullaby or a mantra.

The Camerata is directed by Marguerite Brooks, and the Morse Chorale is directed by Stephanie Tubiolo ’14, M.M. ’16.

For more information about the October Project and its “The Book of Rounds” — along with its Yale connections — visit the group’s website. For more information about the Yale Camerata, click here.