The season will open in November with Sarah Kirkland’s ‘Mass for the Endangered’
By Lee Juillerat for Ashland.news
Single tickets are now on sale for the Anima Mundi’s 2025-26 season, entitled “For Love of Nature.”
The theme was chosen because it “celebrates our natural work and invited us to be loving stewards of our environment,” according to the Anima Mundi website.
Single tickets are being sold on a first-come, first-served basis. Season subscriptions are also available for shows that will be held at the Southern Oregon University Music Recital Hall.
The season will open at 3 p.m. Sunday, November 9 at what Anima Mundi is terming a “special venue,” the ScienceWorks Hands-On Museum, 1500 E. Main St., Ashland, with “Mass for the Endangered.” Created by composer Sarah Kirkland Snider, “Mass” has been praised by The New Yorker, which called it “a hymn for the voiceless and the discounted, a requiem for the not-yet-gone,” saying it “embodies a prayer for endangered animals and the imperiled environments in which they live.”
NPR called the Snider “One of today’s most compelling composers for the human voice,” while The Nation said, “Snider performed a kind of a miracle and created a work that honors the format’s tradition while sounding vitally fresh and evokes the sacred in the service of the secular … a gorgeous, moving piece.”
The Anima Mundi presentation will not be a live performance. It is a special video that features visual animations by Deborah Johnson. Attendees will also be encouraged to explore the ScienceWorks Museum, create watercolor paintings, and engage with the SOU Environmental Sciences Department.
A special performance of Shireen Abu-Khader and the Usul Ensemble is planned for 3 p.m. Sunday, December 7, in the SOU Music Recital Hall.
The concert was originally scheduled last April but was postponed. Tickets purchased for the April performance are valid for the December performance.
The Anima Mundi website describes Abu-Khader as an “ambassador for the Arabic musical tradition.” She will lead the mixed vocal/instrumental in melodies from the Levant that include Sufi-inspired songs, Arab classics and folkloric compositions. A review from The Independent said her “voice has irresistible charm.”
Other future offerings include a performance by Grammy Award-winning “creamy voiced mezzo-soprano” Cecilia Duarte, set for 3 p.m. Sunday, March 22, 2026, in the SOU Music Recital Hall. She will be joined by Spanish percussionist Jesus Pacheco and Venezuelan pianist Ana Maria Otamendi.
Duarte is an opera singer who has been featured in leading roles in several international venues, including Paris, Chicago, and New York City. She has been praised for “a voice celebrated for its exceptional versatility” that takes “audiences on an enchanting journey that spans centuries, genres, and languages,” according to Anima Mundi’s website.
Making a return visit to the SOU Music Recital Hall at 3 p.m., Sunday, May 31, will be pianist Daniel del Pino. He appeared in a sold-out performance with cellist Amt Peled last year, and has appeared internationally, from Carnegie Hall to Madrid’s Auditorio Niconal.
In promoting del Pino, Anima Mundi says, “Experience the passionate world of Spanish salon music as de Pino takes you on a Flamenco-infused journey on themes of nature, punctuated with new poems from resident poet Tiziana DellRovere.”
For more information and to order tickets call 541-833-3066, extension 1, or email [email protected].
Email freelance writer Lee Juillerat at [email protected].
