Coro de Cámara Pianist Yelena Mealy and Coro de Cámara Artistic Director Nylea Butler-Moore review Songstream at the piano. Courtesy/Coro de Cámara 

COMMUNITY News:

Does a spring bouquet of flowers delight you?  If so, then join Coro de Cámara in its season finale, “Time to… Love,” in which the chamber chorus delivers a melodious, fragrant bouquet of love songs that has been arranged especially for you!

Two Matinee Performances: 4 p.m.  Saturday, May 4 at the United Church of Los Alamos, 2525 Canyon Road and 4 p.m. Sunday, May 5 at Christ Church Santa Fe, 1213 Don Gaspar in Santa Fe.

The “Time to… Love” musical bouquet includes roses, lilies, jasmines, and orange blossoms expressed in love songs by Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, David Dickau, and Josef Hadar.  Also included with the bouquet are a toast to beauty from Johannes Brahms and a selection of his four-hands piano waltzes played by Cindy Little and Nylea Butler-Moore; a passionate serenade by Pyotr Tchaikovsky played by violist Kathy Gursky and pianist Yelena Mealy; and a chance to “revel in the cheerful Spring” through madrigals by Henry Purcell and Pierre Passereau, with a surprise madrigal setting of a well-known Lennon & McCartney tune.

The rare and special blossom in the bouquet is Alice Parker’s Songstream for chorus and four-hands pianos, featuring pianists Yelena Mealy and Cynthia Stetson. Dr. Parker, who recently passed away at age 98, is considered an American icon and choral legend. For eight decades, she was a champion of choral singing and an internationally renowned conductor, teacher, writer, and composer of more than 500 works. In Songstream, Parker exquisitely sets nine unconventional love poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay, the immensely popular poet of the Jazz Age and beyond, and the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Matinee Tickets: $25 for adults at the door, $20 online, $10 for college students and free to those age 18 or younger. Tickets are available at the door or online at corodecamara-nm.org.