Hail, Millennium! (2000)

Folger Consort performed Hail, Millennium! from January 14 to January 15, 2000 at the Washington National Cathedral. This extraordinary occasion brought together the combined talents of three organizations whose work spans the last thousand years of music. Beginning with Gregorian chant and Gothic organum, the assembled musicians also performed Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Harbison’s atmospheric Organum. Early settings of the popular tune l'Homme arme were paired with The Armed Man by Mark Kuss; English dance music was heard with the lush works of Vaughan Williams. All three groups join forces to premier James Primosch’s newly composed versions of Sacred Songs, each preceded by the Gregorian chant upon which the song is based. This is music that resonates through the centuries and, in the splendid setting of Washington Cathedral, welcomed the first days of 2000 and heralded a new millennium.

James Primosch “scores with a sure, light hand....” The New Yorker

Milagro Vargas “has a mezzo-soprano voice of strikingly individual and attractive grain...” The Boston Globe

Artists

Folger Consort

Artistic Directors

• Robert Eisenstein
• Christopher Kendall

Guest artists

• Washington National Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys: Doug Major, Director
• The 20th Century Consort, in residence at the Smithsonian Institution: Christopher Kendall, Artistic Director
• Milagro Vargas: mezzo-soprano