On April 12 and 13, the Chatham Chorale Chamber Singers, led by Music Director Joseph Marchio, presented “From Darkness to Light,” a program of motets, madrigals, and other chamber works that celebrate the rebirth of life and light in springtime. Concerts took place at First Congregational Church of Yarmouth and at First Congregational Church, Main Street, in Chatham.
Fittingly for the weekend of Palm Sunday, these concerts explored the themes of darkness and light in
both sacred and secular musical settings. Says Marchio, “There are musical echoes of the journey, during Holy Week, from the darkness of betrayal and death to the brightness of the Resurrection. Madrigals that hail spring and the blossoming of love express the gratitude and wonder we all feel as winter’s gloom gives way to light, warmth, and new life.” Audiences heard works by Bach, William Byrd, Maurice Duruflé, Franz Joseph Haydn, Felix Mendelssohn, Thomas Morley, Jean Sibelius, and more.
Featured with the Chamber Singers was pianist Donald Enos, the Chorale’s resident pianist and founder and director of the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival, and the next generation of Cape Cod keyboard geniuses in the person of seventeen-year-old Julian Petrallia, on the organ. The multitalented Petrallia, a junior at Nauset Regional High School, was recently profiled in the Cape Cod Chronicle. He appeared with the Chorale this March on the flute, but the organ is his instrument of choice. Joseph Marchio, who is music director of Chatham’s First Congregational Church in addition to leading the Chorale, offered the young musician a chance to practice on the church organ and was so impressed that he soon gave Petrallia the job of assistant organist. “It’s hard to find a place to practice the organ. I remembered what that was like,” says Marchio, who calls Petrallia “incredibly talented.”
Chatham Chorale is one of Cape Cod’s longest-established choral ensembles, for 43 years presenting an annual concert series with programs ranging from choral masterworks to Broadway, pops stylings, and premieres of new works by regional composers. The Chorale and Chamber Singers also regularly collaborate with the Cape Cod Symphony and sing in service to the community.