Boston-based world music vocal ensemble Halalisa Singers presents “Concert for the Earth,” a performance honoring Earth Day, featuring the “Missa Gaia (Earth Mass).”
Saturday, April 29, 8:00 p.m., First Unitarian Church, Worcester (90 Main Street)
Sunday, April 30, 4:00 p.m., at First Parish, Arlington, (630 Massachusetts Avenue)
Special guests include composer, singer, and guitarist Jim Scott, who joins the 30-voice choir as performer and soloist in his own works including “Missa Gaia” and “We Are the Earth,” and acclaimed saxophonist/vocalist Stan Strickland. Led by Artistic Director Mary Cunningham, the ensemble is also joined by local branch members of the national climate movement organization Mothers Out Front.
Tickets are $25, available at halalisa.org. For more information: email info@halalisa.org or follow Halalisa Singers on Facebook or Instagram.
Composed in the early 1980s, the riveting “Missa Gaia (Earth Mass),” by Paul Winter, Paul Halley, and Jim Scott, weaves lyrical melodies with international gospel traditions, the calls of animals, and the songs of whales as a joyful tribute to the planet, reminding us of the incomparable beauty, preciousness and precariousness of nature.
Representing Lexington are Gordon Harris, Alice Leitheiser, Deborah Weiner, Ben Soule and Michael Rowley