Tower of Song: An Evening of Music to Dispel Darkness

Caroline Winschel, formerly of Trumbull, brings home an original concert with Tower of Song, six of Philadelphia's most adventurous choral singers to Stratford on January 14 at 4 p.m., for a free concert. 

Winschel, along with Katy Akinskas, Sonja Bontrager, Laura Feibush, Ranwa Hammamy, and Jen Hayman, first convened this August, preparing a full concert program chronicling the depth and incandescence of music for women's choirs.

After debuting to rave reviews in Philadelphia, they take the show in the road, bringing their unearthly blend and invigorating musicianship to other performances along the East Coast.

Appropriately for a mid-winter concert, the program calls upon invocations of light and security, ranging from a sampling of Marian paeans to Hildegard von Bingen's poems celebrating wisdom to European folk lullabies of homecoming and safe passage.

In singing through these centuries of illumination, we find the same themes suggested by composers as disparate as Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525–1594) and Amy Beach (1867–1944), Zoltán Kodály (1882–1967) and Abbie Betinis (1980–). Taken together, the evening's repertoire serves as proof against the encroaching darkness of evening and winter, sustaining us for the coming night.

Admission to the concert is free, but please bring non-perishable food items to donate to the Trumbull Food Pantry.