Oregon Repertory Singers audiences are well aware of the beauty and power of the music of Ēriks Ešenvalds. His setting of Sara Teasdale’s Stars for choir and tuned wine glasses, which ORS sings every year at Glory of Christmas, creates the indelible feeling of floating in the heavens surrounded by music.

Oregon Repertory Singers is lucky to have a long and productive relationship with Ēriks Ešenvalds. In 2012 ORS became the first American choir to host this inspiring composer for the United States premiere of Passion and Resurrection. In the years since, Ešenvalds has become one of the most prominent choral composers in the world. We are honored to host him in Portland again for the Northwest premieres of several of his major works including In Paradisum for choir, viola, and cello; Seneca’s Zodiac (on a text by the Roman Stoic poet); and three new works using texts by Oregon’s poet laureate emerita, Paulann Petersen.

“I have often thought of the tonal music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as being the music of human construction, with major and minor chords representing the lines and blocks we construct to depict order within nature. Ešenvalds’ expanded tonality, though it includes dissonant tones, sounds to me even more consonant than major and minor, something like the next dimension of construction. Perhaps these are the harmonies of the Fibonacci sequence, the sounds of the spiral, or the way in which nature orders itself that remains beyond complete human comprehension. Perhaps this is why it works equally well to depict the wonder of human feelings when translating the divinity of nature into oneself or when encountering the divine in a religious context. Ešenvalds’ ability to write this music is a rare gift, one that allows us to be transformed, translated by the beauty and complexity of his compositions. Lucky, lucky us.”

- Ethan Sperry, Artistic Director

Oregon Repertory Singers is pleased to partner with the Oregon Latvian Society for the Music of Eriks Esenvalds. We look forward to sharing more details about this exciting collaboration as they develop. More in 2025!

Noteworthy pieces to be performed:
Stars (as heard on the acclaimed ORS album “50”)
In Paradisum
Seneca’s Zodiac