Fall Music Sunday 2025
Saint-Saens's Requiem
Sunday November 16th, 10:30-11:30am
Featuring:
the UUCB Choir
with vocal soloists Emily Yancey, Helen Lowry, Daniel Barna, and Ky Ver Hoef
& guest keyboardist TBA
Spring Music Weekend 2026
Featuring:
Avanti Music & the UUCB Choir
Friday May 15th 7:30-9pm and Sunday May 17th 10:30-11:30am
PROGRAM:
Durante Magnificat in B Major
Haydn Te Deum
Brahms Geistliches Lied
Rodrigo Concerto de Aranjuez*
* = Friday program only
Past Music Weekends
Mother: a celebration of mother earth and the feminine divine
UUCB's 2025 Spring Music Weekend, entitled “Mother: a celebration of mother earth and the feminine divine," was presented on Friday, May 9th at 7pm and Sunday, May 11th at 10:30am, both at the UU Church of Buffalo. The music program commissioned a set of new choral works by local jazz artist Alex McArthur, and they were the centerpiece of the Friday night concert and Sunday’s Music Sunday service. The choir and guest musicians also performed works by Caroline Mallonee, Frank Tichelle, George and Ira Gershwin, and more. The Friday evening event also featured performances by Alex and her band, including both Alex originals and her arrangements of songs by Phil Collins. The Music Sunday service featured the UUCB choir only, with a sermon by Alex.
Well-Mannered Frivolity
Sunday, November 17th was our Music Sunday, entitled “Well-Mannered Frivolity” - not only a reference to the recently departed Maggie Smith’s role in the Harry Potter films, but also a wonderful way to sum up the choir’s fall focus of finding joy and ease in their time together. The service featured the stunning music of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Three Shakespeare Songs and Benjamin Britten’s Choral Dances from Gloriana – two colorful and playful sets of a capella choral pieces with Elizabethan-era references and dreamlike imagery. For the sermon, Music Director Jessie Downs spoke about the importance of finding time in our lives not only for rest and recovery but escape into fantasy and dreaming. Through seemingly “frivolous” indulgence, we can nourish our inner worlds and return to our collective reality more energized and awake.
Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem
UUCB’s Spring Music Weekend 2024 featured a presentation of Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem on Sunday, April 7th at 10:30am. Eastman DMA organist Augustine Sobeng will accompany our choir on Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem, a meditative half-hour of music that explores the impact of grief. For this special service, our choir will also be joined by 5 guest vocal artists from the Sotto Voce collective – altos Jamie Gangemi and Erin Alexander, tenors Tyler Huk and Zane Merritt, and baritone Ky Ver Hoef. In addition to our group’s lush ensemble sound, audiences will also be treated to solos by our Soprano Soloist Taryn Goehrig and guest baritone Ky Ver Hoef.
Prayers for Peace
The UUCB’s MUUsic 2023 Fall Weekend (November 17th to the 19th) performances of “Prayers for Peace” presented a stirring trio of music to both celebrate Ukrainian culture and the healing power of cross-cultural music sung together.
The UUCB Choir collaborated with the University at Buffalo (UB) Choir, Mriya Ukrainian Women’s Choir, and St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church Choir to produce two evening concerts and a morning service featuring powerful reflective music in solidarity with the people of Ukraine. These events showcased music by a variety of Ukrainian choral composers and included spoken information on the music’s origins and meanings in both English and Ukrainian. The UUCB service on Sunday included musical excerpts from the two previous evening events, and information about the history and lived experience of the war in Ukraine, as well as how we in the U.S. can help.
Dido & Aeneas
On May 5th 2023 the UUCB Choir, staff, and guest musicians from around the country presented Henry Purcell’s baroque opera Dido and Aeneas for our first ever MUUsic Weekend.
This expansion of our traditional Music Sundays began with a full operatic performance on Friday, May 5th at 7:30pm (with pre-show talk at 7pm) and was followed by a presentation of choral excerpts from the opera on Sunday May 7th at our usual service time. The Friday evening performance was open to the public on a pay-what-you-will basis. If you missed it, you can now watch a recording of the event on our YouTube channel (link to the left).
Dido and Aeneas tells the story of Dido, Queen of Carthage, as first told in Virgil’s epic The Aeneid. The widowed and exiled queen is master of her own domain until the widowed and exiled hero Aeneas arrives on her queendom’s shores. Through the meddling of the gods, the two rulers’ fates are bound together, only to then be forced violently apart with horrific consequences for Dido. The opera is known for its tragic ending, but this mythic tale is also full of humor and insight into what it means to be human. Its hour-long duration is crammed full of stunning singing from both the soloists and Greek-style chorus. Our production also featured period string and keyboard instruments as would have been used in the opera’s original productions in the 1680s.
