calimac

Driving to Stanford last evening was a dicey proposition, as it's graduation time and the parking lots were packed. But I persevered, because I wanted to attend William Mahrt's retirement concert.

He's a music professor whom I once took an extension class from, and who's best-known on campus for having founded and directed, for 52 years (!), this ensemble, which at first he wanted to call the Grateful Quick. (I don't need to explain the references there, do I?)

It's 20-25 members, a few students but mostly faculty and community people, who give acapella concerts in the reverberant acoustics of Memorial Church. This one was nearly 2 hours, and included two sets devoted to a single composer each, Josquin and Lasso, for the variety of their output; also one of English motets by Tallis and Byrd; also works by Victoria, Gallus, and a number of others. Mostly in Latin, of course, but German, French, Italian, Spanish, and English were also heard.

Beautiful stuff, emotionally healing, and it was cool in that grandiose stone edifice on a hot evening. Glad I went.