On Sunday, May 19th at 4:00 pm, the combined choirs of Grace Lutheran, First Lutheran, and University Lutheran Churches in Palo Alto will sing a mass by the eminent jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck.

Though famous as a jazz artist, the California native Dave Brubeck (1920-2012) was educated and highly skilled as a “classical” musician. He studied piano at what is now the University of the Pacific in Stockton, and after serving in the Second World War, continued his study in composition with the important French composer Darius Milhaud at Mills College in Oakland. (You may know Mills as a women’s college, although it does accept men into its graduate programs and it is exceptionally noted for its faculty in music composition.) Brubeck said of Milhaud: “Milhaud was an enormously gifted classical composer and teacher who loved jazz and incorporated it into his work.”

The mass entitled “To Hope! A Celebration” was composed in the late 1970s and contains elements of jazz and gospel, middle eastern chant, blues, experimental and classical styles (somewhat reminiscent of Leonard Bernstein).
Brubeck himself says in the preface to the printed score: “Emotions that are life, from sorrow to exaltation, were part of my experience in writing To Hope! When the work was completed, I felt a strong sense of wholeness and affirmation. I pray that those who experience the work will share my feelings.”

This fascinating, moving, and rarely-performed work will be accompanied by a jazz combo of piano, bass, trumpet, trombone, and percussion.

The performance will be held at Grace Lutheran Church, 3149 Waverley Street in Palo Alto. Free-will offering. Reception to follow.