AST Sacred Concert Series 2009/2010

Sacred music concerts are a new venture at Atlantic School of Theology. We are pleased to present four concerts this season, performed by outstanding professional musicians from the region and beyond. During these concerts, we will be exploring the ways in which music and faith inform and enrich each other. This will be done both by the way music was selected and also by the manner in which it is presented. The concerts were chosen because they reflect on themes of importance to religious thought or because they illustrate the complex and sometimes challenging interplay of religion and music. These sacred concerts will focus on the important but often unnoticed ways in which the arts and religious traditions intersect to contribute to and enrich our lives.

Click here to view our printed program (pdf)

The Mass for Organ

Friday, November 20

8 pm

The organ is well known today in its role in church music. The wider role of the organ still has roots in church music. This concert will explore, through the work of Haydn and Mozart, the close connection between the sacred and secular roles of the organ.

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Music at the Ends of the Ages

Tuesday, January 26

7:30 pm

The Quartet for the End of Time is one of the master works in the chamber music literature of the 20th Century. First performed on January 15, 1941, in Stalag VIIa in Görlitz, Germany, where Messiaen and his fellow musicians were being held as prisoners of war, the piece reflects the horror and fears of its time. To these realities it responds with an expression of the profound catholic faith that shapes all of Messiaen’s work.

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Songs of Life and Death

Tuesday, February 16

7:30 pm

The centre-piece of this vocal recital will be the Pulitzer prize winning song cycle by Dominick Argento, “From the Diary of Virginia Woolf.” While not a religious figure, Woolf has been of interest to scholars of religion over recent years because of her probing of the themes of embodiment, suffering, and death.

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The Inspiring Hymn

Tuesday, March 23

7:30 pm

For English composers of the 20th Century, the attempt to shape a genuinely English school of composition involved a reaching back into the period before England was described as a land without music. Especially important were the folk traditions of the British Isles, the polyphony of the Tudor period, and the work of Henry Purcell. Not surprisingly, sacred music, including hymnody, was an essential element of this extraordinarily rich period. This concert explores the impact of hymnody as a source for instrumental music by English composers in the mid 20th Century.

Click here to view our promotional poster (pdf)

Ticket Pricing

Single tickets: $20

Seniors: $10

Students: $5

All AST sacred concerts take place in

AST's St. Columba Chapel

634 Francklyn Street

Halifax, NS  B3H 3B5

AST recognizes the support of the Province of Nova Scotia through the Department of Tourism, Culture & Heritage. We are pleased to work in partnership with the Culture Division to develop and promote our cultural resources for all Nova Scotians.