The last work in Tyler Futrell’s church music trilogy

The Church Music Festival is premiering Tyle Futrell’s latest commissioned work, Epilog: On the Nature of Things, written for Amalie Stalheim and Oslo Cathedral Choir on commission by the festival. The work is the last chapter in Futrell’s church music trilogy. The works have had their world premieres during the Oslo International Church Music Festival in 2022, 2024, and 2026. Like the two previous works, Stabat mater and the requiem Rest, the epilogue moves from the personal to the universal, and grapples with big questions and experiences. Taking inspiration from the Bible, De Rerum Natura (“On the Nature of Things”) by Lucretius, as well as modern science, this is an exploration of creation and decay, love and loss, life and afterlife. The work’s structure follows a creation-and-decay process: the choir and a lone cello lead the audience from darkness to light, from chaos to form – and back into silence. The result is a meditative reflection on the human’s place in the universe.

Oslo Cathedral Choir under the direction of the choir’s new conductor, Oddgeir Kjetilstad, performs the American composer Eric Whitacre’s When David Heard – a powerful work about King David’s grief following his son’s death. On the program we also find two Anglican chants, both with lyrics from the Book of Psalms. Stalheim performs J.S. Bach’s Cello Suite No. 3 in C major, one of the most important works in the cello repertoire.