Click on image to download postcard
Saturday, March 23, 2013 at 7:30 PM
Altadena Community Church
943 E. Altadena Dr.
Altadena, CA 91001
Rachmaninoff composed his All-Night Vigil during a 3-week period in 1915. It is a towering achievement and a work of deep faith. Comprised of fifteen movements and based largely on Russian Orthodox chants the All-Night Vigil is a technical and emotional tour de force. Sung without instruments and lasting just over one hour the piece evokes many moods and stretches the choir to its limits of range and endurance.
His family fortune gone, Rachmaninoff fled Russia in 1917 and moved to the United States, settling in Hollywood, California. In this country he enjoyed great success as a concert pianist, traveling and concertizing extensively. Though his success afforded him a measure of material luxury, he felt like an exile, missing his homeland and the Russian Orthodox church. In 1943, months before his death, he completed what would be his final work, the Symphonic Dances, commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra. In the final minutes of that work Rachmaninoff, reaching back nearly 30 years, quoted a section of his All-Night Vigil, a powerful statement of faith from a composer creating his final work.
Sunday, March 24, 2013 at 4:00 PM
Altadena Community Church
943 E. Altadena Dr.
Altadena, CA 91001
