CAE Presents: Verdi Requiem
Saturday, October 11, 2025 at 7:30pm
Sunday, October 12, 2025 at 3:00pm
St. Philip Neri Catholic Church
Adult/Senior – $22 in advance / $30 day-of and at the door
Student – $5 in advance and at the door
Pay what you can – This ticket option is designed to make CAE concerts accessible to those who find our standard ticket pricing might prevent them from attending our concerts.
The Choral Arts Ensemble of Portland opens our 57th concert season with the Northwest premiere, and only the 2nd U.S. performance, of Verdi’s dramatic and moving Requiem in a new chamber arrangement for two pianos, organ and percussion. Experience this uniquely powerful work as you’ve never heard it before: intimate, immediate and captivating.
program notes
Thanks to an inspired idea by David Hill, musical director of the Bach Choir of London (which is currently celebrating its 150th season), the Choral Arts Ensemble is excited to present Verdi’s powerful Requiem as few have ever heard it. In 2020, Hill commissioned English composer Richard Blackford (b. 1954) to create a new setting of the Requiem for organ, two pianos, and percussion, rather than a huge orchestra, allowing smaller ensembles to perform it in more intimate venues. Blackford has composed across many genres, including concertos, choral works, music for film and television, a musical, King (lyrics by Maya Angelou), and The Great Animal Orchestra Symphony, which combines recordings of animals and the natural world with musical instruments…