Rivers & Streams

Ars Nova Singers bring Rivers & Streams to the St. Paul Center for Music and the Arts on Saturday, October 10, at 7:30 PM. It's the Denver stop of a three-day run that opens their 41st season, and the whole thing is built around the pairing of a choir and a classical guitar.

The program brings together two works separated by sixty-nine years. The first is Romancero Gitano, Op. 152, written by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco in 1951 on texts by Federico García Lorca. The second is Rivers, Op. 104, a secular oratorio from 2020 by Corrado Margutti. Rivers is a piece about migration, the search for a homeland, and the construction of identity, drawing on poets spanning a century and a half. The two works are linked more than just by the guitar: the first movement of Rivers, "Balada de la placeta," paraphrases the opening of Romancero Gitano, "Baladilla de los tres ríos," so the newer work opens by quoting the older.

Guest artist Nicolò Spera is the one on guitar for both. An Italian guitarist, he's known for playing on both six- and ten-string guitars and for a style that blends European and American traditions. He also commissioned Rivers himself back in 2020, so he's had a hand in this pairing from the start. The ensemble frames the start of the season as beginning "at the source," with the program exploring the fluid textures of water and the shimmering colors of the guitar.

Saturday's show at the St. Paul Center is part of a larger weekend: the choir also plays at Mountain View United Methodist Church in Boulder on Friday, October 9, at 7:30 PM, and at the United Church of Christ in Longmont on Sunday, October 11, at 4 PM. If you're in Denver, the Saturday performance is at 1600 Grant Street.