Name: Songs of Farewell
Start: 2025-10-05T15:15:00+02:00
Location: Stadsklooster Utrecht

Our chamber choir Vox42 sings a program with works by Hubert Parry, Caroline Shaw, Diederik van der Laag, Gustav Mahler, Jake Runestad, and Ralph Vaughan-Williams.
This programme centres on the theme of farewell – to people, to certainties, to the world as we knew it. But it also gives voice to a quieter, often overlooked farewell: the loss of biodiversity, of forests, of our deep-rooted connection with the natural world.
The music presented this evening – contemplative, tender, searching – offers space for reflection.
The works of English composer Hubert Parry, especially his Songs of Farewell, form the emotional backbone of the programme. Written in the final years of his life, during the chaos of World War I, these pieces speak of mortality, faith, and a yearning for peace and inner stillness.
Surrounding Parry’s music are other voices that resonate with themes of loss and renewal:
Diederik van der Laag’s Ils dorment opens the programme in hushed tones – a dreamlike meditation where sleep and death become indistinguishable.
Caroline Shaw’s Companion Planting offers a playful, earthy take on mutual growth and interdependence – a sonic metaphor for ecological balance.
In Mahler’s Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen, arranged by Clytus Gottwald, the soul withdraws from a world too loud and too fast, seeking stillness in sound.
Works by Vaughan Williams and Jake Runestad explore how music can help us navigate grief, find rest, and eventually, continue on.
This performance is part of a benefit initiative for Trees for All, a foundation committed to reforestation and global restoration of biodiversity. By listening, we give space to farewell – and by donating, we sow seeds of renewal.
In both music and nature, we search for restoration: of balance, connection, and hope.
1 euro from every ticket sold will go to Trees for All.
https://www.actievoortreesforall.nl/teams/vox42
photo copyright Simon van Boxtel