The Psalterium Institute Chamber Choir, under the direction of Leon Griesbach, plans to offer sung vespers (evening prayer) and choral meditations for Passiontide and the Sacred Triduum in both Lewiston and Yarmouth during Lent, according to a news release from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.
The presentations will take place at 6:30 p.m. Friday, March 25, at the Basilica of Saints Peter & Paul, 122 Ash St. in Lewiston, and at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, March 26, at Sacred Heart Church, 326 Main St. in Yarmouth. All are welcome to attend.
Chanted evening prayer will be followed by choral meditations including music by William Byrd, Arvo Pärt, Thomas Tallis and Tomas Luis de Victoria.
The Psalterium Institute is dedicated to the mission of training singers to produce beautiful choral music, while also instructing them in the traditions of Catholic sacred music including Gregorian chant, sacred polyphony, and modern sacred repertoire. For both singers and listeners, the institute serves as a source of education and formation in broader musical education in the context of the Catholic musical tradition and in specific forms and expressions of sacred Catholic liturgy.
Griesbach, the executive director and founder of the institute, is the former director of music at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland and former director of liturgical music at the Pontifical North American College in Italy, where he led the seminary’s 45-voice choir in liturgies at the seminary and St. Peter’s Basilica.
“My experiences in choral music over the last 30 years have all formed me deeply,” he said. “Every time I hear a powerful performance, see a brilliant work of art, find myself in an awe-inspiring structure, or in other situations where beauty is apparent, I am most often brought back to moments as a boy chorister, weeping because something is so beautiful it hurts. One of the reasons I founded the institute was to ignite in each heart a desire that takes them on a lifelong journey punctuated by moments of deeply consoling and satisfying beauty.”
For more information about the concerts or the institute, visit psalterinstitute.org.
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