Guest conductor Jean-Claude Picard will guide us through this Dantean journey through sacred and profane repertoire. Bach’s religious music is some of the most emotionally powerful music ever created. His cantata ‘’Wiederstehe doch der Sünde’’ (Just resist sin) and ‘’Erbarme dich, mein Gott’’ (God, have mercy) were written for Lutheran Lent and Good Friday services as sacred bridges of sound to Heaven. 

Moving through the heavens, Three Astral Visions by OCM’s co-founder and first Artistic Director Alexander Brott transforms the raw energy of the cosmos into music. 

In direct contrast, Boccherini’s La casa del diavolo (The Devil’s House), influenced by the popular story of Don Juan, captures the essence of the lover’s tragicomic life and his final infernal retribution. 

Canadian composer Matthew Ricketts (whose sold out song cycle Unruly Sun was premiered last season to a sold-out audience) lends his “lyrical, rhythmically complex and highly nuanced” style to the world premiere of his concerto for oboe and countertenor Contrition, featuring the crisp and mellifluous virtuosity of OSM oboist Vincent Boilard and the elegant and warm timbre of renowned British countertenor Tim Mead. 

To bring us back to Earth, oboist Vincent Boilard infuses this once-thought-lost Mozart concerto with both gentle humor and pathos.