11 Oct Te Deum Receives a $1,200 Grant from the Martha Lee Cain Tranby Music Enrichment Fund
Te Deum, Inc. was recently awarded a $1,200 grant from the Martha Lee Cain Tranby Music Enrichment Fund to support its spring 2019, fall 2019, and Christmas 2019 Chamber Choir concerts.
All performances will give audience members a chance to hear sacred choral music of stunning quality and to form a deep and relevant connection with each concert’s artistic theme.
On May 25-26, the Chamber Choir will present “Cathedral Classics” at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and Village Presbyterian Church. During “Cathedral Classics,” the Chamber Choir will sing pillars of western music, including works by Samuel Barber, Benjamin Britten, Elizabeth Poston, and William Walton.
In the fall of 2019, the Te Deum Chamber Choir will perform “Be a Blessing,” an exploration of the Christian Beatitudes. Beatitudes is the collective name given to the nine proverb-like blessings included in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, e.g. blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the peacemakers, etc. In “Be a Blessing,” Te Deum will pair these biblical texts with non-religious or non-Christian works that embody the same values and principles.
Building on the success of Te Deum’s premiere Christmas concert in 2018, we are returning with an equally exciting but different approach for the 2019 holiday season – collaboration. Te Deum Chamber Choir will team up with the nationally recognized William Jewell Concert Choir. In 2015, the William Jewell Concert Choir was named runner-up for the American Prize in Choral Performance in the college/university chorus division. During the concert, the ensembles will perform both independently and together, offering joyful and thoughtful favorites of the season that audiences are sure to love.
Te Deum’s concerts meet the community needs of audiences, choral artists, and the artistic community. Te Deum Chamber Choir facilitates a connection with Kansas City audiences through concerts that are structured in the context of a relevant theme. This thematic context, along with the Artistic Director’s commentary during the concerts, helps audience members find the music’s relevance in their own lives which helps them connect to the music on a deeply personal level. These personal connections not only encourage patronage of Te Deum performances, but of the arts in general as people increasingly see artistic experiences as personally transformative.
Te Deum also fills a need for the agency’s singers. The Chamber Choir gives area choral artists a place to express their desire to make beautiful music. Many of Te Deum’s singers are elementary school, middle school, high school, and college music teachers. These teachers not only bring their own artistic refinement and energy to the ensembles, but also take lessons learned in rehearsals and performances back to their classrooms to help develop the next generation of choral artists in the Kansas City area. Te Deum offers talented singers a place to practice their craft and stay artistically active while forming professional and personal connections with other singers, all of which creates a stronger and more vibrant artistic community.
Te Deum’s vision is for humanity to be transformed by sacred music. Founded in 2008, Te Deum’s Chamber Choir exists to perform a diverse sacred choral repertoire in a uniquely relevant context to create a musically inspiring, spiritually stirring experience.