📆 Saturday, June 15th
⏰ 2 pm
🎟 $25 – $40
📍 Benaroya Hall, 200 University Street, Seattle
The Portuguese word saudade is “untranslatable” but if one were to take a crack at it, the closest you could get to capturing it would be deep longing, wistfulness, or melancholic nostalgia — an understanding of never being able to experience something again. This feeling, saudade, is explored in Brazilian music and with a heavier tone in Portuguese fado (which made its way onto the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage). Translated or not, one could consider saudade a universal human experience—something waiting within any individual to connect to.
This echoes the Sufi concept of the “essence of all humanity” being contained in just one person, which the upcoming concert, The Drop That Contained the Sea, seeks to explore.
Composed by Christopher Tin, each movement within the piece is “inspired by water in a different form, arranged in the order that water flows through the world: melting snow, mountain streams, rivers, the ocean, and so forth. Each of the 10 movements is sung in a different language, exploring different vocal traditions,” says conductor Dustin Willets. Four choirs will join forces to sing in ancient Greek, Old Norse, Portuguese and many more languages, which will all be live translated with supertitles during the performance. This is also the first time this body of work will play in the Pacific Northwest.
Joining Sno-King Community Chorale is the Kulshan Chorus from Bellingham, Cantabile Chamber Choir of Mt. Vernon, and Bellevue High School Chorale and Treble Ensemble along with the newly formed Salish Sea Orchestra. Guest soloists of the afternoon are Aaron Norman, Veronica Deraleau, Christine Han, and 13-year-old Carnatic singer Nivedha Naren making her debut. All this is to say, you might get shaken to the core.
Sno-King Community Chorale is offering discounted tickets — enter the code “times” when checking out to receive 20% off.
💌 Be Our Pen Pal! Find out what’s happening in Seattle by subscribing to our newsletter.
