Feb

20

SDG commissions ‘Mass for All Saints’ by Jacob Bancks

Filed Under Bancks: Mass for All Saints, Commissions | Leave a Comment

Fra Angelico’s 'All Saints'
Soli Deo Gloria has commissioned award-winning composer Jacob Bancks to write a six movement mass for choir, soloists and chamber orchestra titled Mass for All Saints. Meditative, celebratory, reverent and joyous - Bancks’ new work is inspired by images of all the saints gathered in heaven. “…and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne…” Religious art depicting this description of “the great multitude” from the Book of Revelation stirs the composer’s thoughts as he completes the new work.

Jacob Bancks comments on the inspiration behind Mass for All Saints:

Jacob Bancks - photo: Artistic depictions of the saints intrigue me to no end. In my work as a church musician in the Archdiocese of Chicago, I’ve had the opportunity to see scads of religious art, good and bad, at dozens of parishes. While statues, paintings, and stained glass windows of individual saints can be interesting in themselves, I personally find any representation of a host of saints — all the saints — overwhelmingly fascinating. Rather than replicating their earthly lives (like the ubiquitous statues of St. Francis of Assisi, animals in tow), depictions of all the saints show them gathered in the afterlife, a motley crowd of extremely diverse, extremely imperfect people from every era, nation and race.”

The premiere performance of Mass for All Saints will take place on Sunday, September 20, 2009, at 7:00 p.m., at St. John Berchmans Church in Chicago. Conductor and Artistic Director Robert Katkov-Trevino will lead the Millennium Chamber Players in a program that will also include Mozart’s Requiem.

Award-winning composer Jacob Bancks, whose upcoming premieres include performances with the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, mezzo-soprano Julia Bentley and eighth blackbird, holds the positions of 2008-09 composer-in-residence for the Millennium Chamber Players and Director of Music at St. John Berchmans Church in Chicago. Bancks’ SDG-commissioned piano concerto Lumen de Lumine received its premiere by the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra in March 2008. Click here for photos, videos and reports.