Next up in the God Is Still Speaking – Come Listen! Concert Series!

The program will feature the First Congregational Church Chancel Choir with guest singers from the St. Louis Symphony IN UNISON Chorus and the St. Louis Bach Society Chorus, accompanied by a 10 – piece chamber orchestra.  Program narrators include Rev. Cliff Aerie, Rev. Jan Barnes, and Rev. Geoffrey Black (past President and General Minister of the United Church of Christ). The music and narrative will be expressed visually as a potter creates live throughout the program. The concert is open to the public.  A free-will offering will be received to benefit Magdalene St. Louis, a residential community for women who have survived lives of sexual exploitation, violence and addiction.

The Cry of Jeremiah is a four-movement choral work based textually on the 20^th chapter of Jeremiah. The prophet Jeremiah, having experienced ridicule and imprisonment because of his prophecies, laments his present state.  The work is composed by Dr. Rosephanye Powell – an African-American woman who is hailed as one of America’s premier composers of choral music.

Musically, The Cry of Jeremiah is influenced by a wide array of musical genres – classical counterpoint and jazz harmonies and rhythmic vitality in the opening movement; African-influenced, percussive vocalization with an underlay of African drums and exotic orchestral colors in the second movement; harmonic dissonance and tension in the third movement; and the Gospel refrain building to a glorious finale in the final movement.

Scripture, poems and stories portraying perseverance through adversity will complement the Jeremiah text.  The program will conclude with Rosephanye Powell’s majestic musical expression of Maya Angelou’s inspiring poem – Still I Rise.