Name: Vespers: Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil
Start: 2025-10-24T19:30:00-04:00
Location: Trinity Cathedral, Cleveland

Cleveland's premier professional choir presents Sergei Rachmaninoff’s beloved "All-Night Vigil" in the atmospheric glow of candlelight. The Vigil sets to music the prayers for the canonical hours from dusk to dawn. One of the composer’s favorite works, Rachmaninoff requested the fifth movement (the Nunc dimittis) be sung at his funeral.
The Vigil is paired with Reena Esmail’s "A Winter Breviary," whose poetry takes us figuratively from winter’s darkness to spring’s light, and whose harmonic language is drawn from Indian Carnatic raags (melodic modes) that are associated with the hours of prayer from dusk to dawn. From poet Rebecca Gaye Howell who wrote the words to "A Winter Breviary": “For more than a thousand years, across the world and often without knowing, these two spiritual traditions have met, together, in song. Both raags and canonical prayers offer a constancy that marks a life by the well-loved day; they both act as a kind of clock for the soul.”
Embark on a profound journey of light and hope, where we invite our listeners to consider how the idea of vigil – a period of wakefulness and watchfulness – can help us find peace in a chaotic world.
Inspired by musical themes of creating peace and community, a portion of all donations will be directed to Re:Source Cleveland, helping them further their mission of helping Cleveland’s newest neighbors to create roots within our Cleveland community. They work with children and adults who come to Cleveland as refugees, humanitarian parolees, asylum seekers, and those with temporary protected status. Their work focuses on supporting newcomers in building thriving lives through education, mentoring, tutoring, mental health and wellness, urban agriculture, employment, content creation, youth sports and recreation, and social services and benefits enrollment.
Charles Edward McGuire, PhD, from Oberlin College & Conservatory, will present a pre-concert talk 45 minutes prior to each performance.
The choir is grateful for the full season grant support provided by The Louise H. and David S. Ingalls Foundation and the Ohio Arts Council, and support by Trinity Cathedral as named Artist in Residence.