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About the Music Reconciled: A Gospel Oratorio — the composition performed in this concert — creatively blurs the lines between neo-classical and gospel, following the centuries-old order of Christian worship but re-imagining it for the 21st century with soulful musical styling. The fusion and blending of these two distinct genres presented the artists an opportunity to express reconciliation in the process as well as in the performance. Reconciled is both a celebration and an embodiment of Christ’s ongoing work of reconciliation in the world.The piece opens with the “Reconciled Overture,” a collision of symphonic sounds foreshadowing the spiritual and sonic journey on which we are about to embark. The choir streams in singing “Veni Sancte Spiritus,” a call to the Holy Spirit to come! We are here tonight because the Spirit has drawn us — not simply as passive listeners, but as active worshipers. Yet, even as we respond to God’s expansive welcome, we gather as a people estranged from one another and divided by differences that appear irreconcilable. Now enters the first of the variations on the hymn “The Church’s One Foundation.” This hymn is the recurring theme, the common thread, of the work, reminding us that our foundation — both as individuals and as the Church — is Jesus. Next, “Kyrie” voices our confession of division, our cry for mercy as we own up to the barriers we’ve constructed in our world, in the Church, in our lives. Immediately, though, the mood changes, erupting into celebration, as we revel in God’s comprehensive, liberating forgiveness: “Gloria!” Two stories from Scripture are then juxtaposed. First, we are brought into the confusion and separation at Babel’s tower. The hymn theme enters again, but this time it grinds with disunity and then moves frantically in all directions. A wind blows through, heard in the flutes, a wind of the Spirit, and on that wind the message, “Good News! Good News is coming !” We are taken into the story of Pentecost and the powerful peace that Christ has become for all. The musical liturgy moves us deeper into a feast of gratitude for what Christ has done, is doing , and will do, and so we proclaim the mystery of our faith: “Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!” What follows is a diverse range of styles, from the rawness of the Lord’s Prayer, to the gorgeous, sweeping “Agnus Dei,” all the way to the electrifying title piece, “Reconciled.” Reconciled: A Gospel Oratorio calls us, inspires us, to live what little of the gospel we know, committing ourselves to Christ’s reconciling work in the world — healing all divisions. God’s Spirit commissions each of us to the ministry of reconciliation, in all its multiple forms, with a single foundation, Jesus Christ. Ryan Marsh Conceptual Designer and Librettist |
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