The Ithaca Community Chorus and Chamber Singers, with the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, will perform Kodály's “Te Deum” and Brahms's “Schicksalslied” (Song of Fate) at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 4, 2024, at St. Paul's United Methodist Church, 402 North Aurora Street, Ithaca. Tickets ($20, children and students free) are available at https://acithaca.org/groups/icccs/tickets/ and at the door.

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Under the direction of Gerald Wolfe, accompanied by Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, the Ithaca Community Chorus and Chamber Singers will perform Zoltan Kodaly’s magnificent Te Deum, a festive work celebrating the 250th anniversary of the recapture of Buda Castle from the Turks. Kodaly was the foremost collector of Hungarian folk music and uses stylistic elements of it throughout.

We will complement the Kodaly with a beautiful work by Brahms. Schicksalslied, or “Song of Fate”, is considered to be one of Brahms’s best choral works, along with Ein Deutsches Requiem. One scholar says, “Had Brahms never written anything but this one work, it would alone have sufficed to rank him with the best masters.”

The Chamber Singers will perform a set of four secular songs by Brahms.