The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: A FREE and PUBLIC choral and guitar concert this Sunday night at Edgewood College will explore the new St. John’s Bible musically and visually.

ALERT: This Sunday night at 8 p.m in Mills Hall, a FREE concert by the local percussion group Clocks in Motion will give the world premieres of two new works by composers Ben Davis and Anthony Donotrio.

By Jacob Stockinger

This Sunday night, Nov. 22, at 7 p.m. the public will have the chance to explore musically and visually the modern Saint John’s Bible, a large mutli-volume work. which is beautifully illuminated with original contemporary art that is reminiscent of Medieval illuminated manuscripts.

The audio-visual event, “Illuminated Harmony,” will take place in the St. Joseph Chapel, 1000 Edgewood College Drive.

No tickets are required and the event is FREE. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m.

This musical and visual collaboration explores the themes of creation, incarnation and transformation. Inspired by illuminations from the Saint John’s Bible Heritage edition, choral selections will be accompanied by projected animations of the chosen illuminated images. It was on display this past year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison‘s Chazen Museum of Art.

Edgewood College officials say that this concert is an invitation to the community to tap into the deep spirituality of the music and the illuminations in the presence of the Gospels and the Acts volume of the Saint John’s Bible Heritage Edition.

Here is a link to the official website for the Bible, which was commissioned and cost $145,000 in 1998 and was finished in 2011:

http://www.saintjohnsbible.org

And here is a link to an online exhibition of the Bible at The Library of Congress, so you can explore it more before or after the concert:

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/stjohnsbible/stjohns-exhibit.html

The event will feature the Campus-Community Choir, the Chamber Singers, the Women’s Choir (below) and the Guitar Ensemble. Sorry, no word about the specific pieces or composers that will be sung and played.

Here is a link to a brief audiovisual sample of the Edgewood presentation:

https://youtu.be/s2MUxJN4UlU

In the YouTube video below, art director Donald Jackson talks about creating the new Bible: