The auditioned mid-coast a cappella vocal ensemble VoXX: Voice of Twenty will celebrate summer with its upcoming concert series, “Music for Midsummer,” presented in four venues in June, led by Music Director John Mehrmann.

We celebrate the brief season of light and warmth with a variety of sacred and secular pieces. Many touch on themes of love – spiritual, carnal, lost, and found. This program also celebrates the turning of the seasons and includes two pieces that express a fervent wish for peace and healing. As with other VoXX programs, the music spans the centuries, from the fourteenth century to a piece completed about a month ago by VoXX member Grace Yanz.

Early works include pieces from the fourteenth century by Francesco Landini (Ecco la primavera) and Pierre Cadéac (Je suis déshéritée), ranging through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with Tallis’s If ye love me, Monteverdi’s Adoramus te, Palestrina’s Osculetur me osculo oris sui and Salamone Rossi’s Hebrew setting of text from Psalm 80, Elohim Hashivenu.

Later works include Mendelssohn’s lovely Lift Thine Eyes, along with pieces by Frank Bridge (Music, When Soft Voices Die), Britten (The Succession of the Four Sweet Months),and Philip Glass (There Are Some Men, a setting of a poem by Leonard Cohen).

The program also includes a setting of a Billy Joel song, And So it Goes, as well as two world premieres: VoXX member Grace Yanz’s Peace Be Upon You, and Music Director John Mehrmann’s O Guiding Night.

VoXX will present “Music for Midsummer” four times:

Saturday, June 15, at 7:30 p.m.
Unitarian Universalist Church, 37 Miller Street, Belfast
 
Sunday, June 16, 4 p.m.
Old South Cushing Meeting House, Salt Pond Road, Cushing

Saturday, June 22, at 7:30 p.m.
Union Hall, 24 Central Street, Rockport
 
Sunday, June 23, 3 p.m. (free concert)
The Beech Nut
Beech Hill Preserve, Rockport
 
Tickets for Belfast and Union Hall are $20, available online at www.voiceoftwenty.com, or at the door.

Cushing tickets available at the door only, cash or check – suggested donation $20.

The Beech Hill concert is free of charge.

Students and children are always free.

FMI visit www.voiceoftwenty.com.