Universalizing the Mass
Originally published by Peter Alexander for Sharps & Flatirons.
“We wanted to bring the music from one of our finer performances,” Tom Morgan says.
The conductor of Boulder’s Ars Nova Singers wanted to offer a free online gift to the disaster-wearied local community at the start of 2022, before the choir starts having in-person rehearsals and performances later in the spring. But he faced one problem: the group has made a lot of sound recordings of their concerts, but not any videos.
What he wanted to share was a pre-COVID performance from October 2018, of Will Todd’s Mass in Blue, a jazz-inflected, modern setting of movements from the Latin Mass. Morgan decided that rather than showing a static image or series of still images, which he says are “not particularly interesting to look at,” he would create his own video with abstract and natural imagery to accompany the music.
Under the title “Made Cool,” the resulting video was offered free to the public at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 18, through the Ars Nova Web page. (You can watch again below!)
