Arts & Culture

Not just a concert, but a service too

Already in their third season, Musica Sacra SA will perform Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. at Our Lady of Atonement. The program follows the Second Sunday of Advent - both musically and literally.

Robert Finster says there are familiar composers and one you might not know. "David Briggs is a great improviser for the organ, and has transcribed all of the Gigout solos! He works in London at a church, plus he composes very original pieces. I first heard of him on your radio station [KPAC] with Heart and Voice!"

Few, if any, operas can bear comparison with the gestation, preparation and final execution of Giuseppe Verdi’s "Un Ballo in Maschera." It is the work that definitively closes his middle period; preceded by "Traviata," "Rigoletto," and "Il Trovatore" and followed by his supreme masterworks "Don Carlo," "Aida," "Otello" and "Falstaff."

As of this year, the vocal group Anonymous 4 has been introducing modern audiences to medieval music for a quarter century. When the all-female quartet asked David Lang to help mark the occasion by writing them some music, he didn't need any convincing. The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer was already a big fan.

Leo Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karenina” continues to be a source of inspiration for filmmakers, having been adapted over a dozen times in different forms by directors all over the world. Joe Wright’s feature film boldly breaks from tradition, confining most of the plot on a single soundstage.