The Ballad of the Brown King: A Christmas Cantata (1954) by Margaret Bonds
Christmas Oratorio (Part V) by J.S. Bach
Magnificat by J.S. Bach

Sixty years ago, savoring the triumph of their holiday cantata The Ballad of the Brown King, American composer Margaret Bonds wrote her collaborator Langston Hughes, “You and I together have created a choral composition to be programmed with Bach and Handel.” Last season, The Cecilia Chorus of New York gave the first-ever Carnegie Hall performance of Bonds’s Ballad, programmed alongside Handel. Now we honor the composer’s vision in a repeat performance of the Ballad, bookended by music of J.S. Bach: his beloved Magnificat and the fifth cantata from his Christmas Oratorio.

Conductor’s Note