Battle Hymns

Experience an unprecedented collaboration between the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, the Boston Children’s Chorus, and the Harvard Dance Project reflecting on the American Civil War. 

Composer and classical guitarist Jeffrey Van will perform his lyrical setting of Walt Whitman war poetry for chorus and guitar, "A Procession Winding Around Me". The concert also features the New England premiere of David Lang’s "after stephen foster", a dynamic and immersive work for mixed chorus, children’s choir, and dance ensemble. 

The concert marks the world premiere of several new works by Harvard student composers, including a setting of Oliver Wendell Holmes’s Hymn by Evan O’Dorney ‘15, the winner of Collegium’s inaugural Student Composition Competition. Holmes's poem was written for Memorial Hall’s cornerstone-laying ceremony in 1870, and its performance aims to bridge Harvard’s past and present.

The performance is the second program in a three-concert series entitled “Unfinished Work,” presented by the Holden Choruses and the Harvard Civil War Project that coincides with Brian Knep’s interactive art installation, Deep Wounds, in the transept of Memorial Hall. Battle Hymns is also a headlining event of Harvard’s annual Arts First festival (April 30-May 3).

Contact your favorite Collegium member for tickets: Students- $8 and $10 (SEF eligible); General- $20, $25, 30; VIP-$45

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