Mass in Exile
Saturday, October 17, 2026, 5:00 p.m.
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Rockville
100 Welsh Park Drive, Rockville, Md.
mass in exile
Cantate Chamber Singers
Victoria Gau, conductor
Carl DuPont, baritone guest soloist
Alec Green, guitar
Welcome to Cantate’s interactive program for MASS IN EXILE. Within the program, select a title to view its text. Use “back to top” to return here.
Join us for Cantate’s next concert: GLORIA!
Program
By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame
Beat! Beat! Drums!
Look Down Fair Moon
Reconciliation
____, guitar
INTERMISSION
Mark Buller (b. 1986)
I. For Want of Refuge (Miserere) II. Credo in Exile III. Peaceable Kingdom Gloria IV. As Water Flows Away (Prayer for the Government) V. Mercy (Kyrie) VI. Earth Sanctus: Body and Blood VII. When All Else Fails (Benedictus)
Carolyn Chuhta, Caitlin Garry, Gabriel Krotkov, Kyleigh Kutz, Maria Lostoski, David O’Dette, Devin Osborne, Jeanne Morin, Jack Mountain, and Dennis Tosh, solo voices
Please join us for a reception following the performance.
ABOUT CANTATE
Cantate Chamber Singers (CCS) performs choral literature of the past five centuries, championing neglected masterpieces and 20th- and 21st-century music, including premieres of choral works commissioned from young and diverse composers. CCS was founded in 1984 and has been under the direction of Victoria Gau since 2019. Cantate now encompasses CCS, Cantate Concert Choir (founded 2021), and the Summer Choral Institute (in partnership with Montgomery College), as well as the Lift Every Voice oratorio fellowship for pre-professional singers and the biennial Young Composers’ Competition, both of which provide paid opportunities for performance, training, and advancement to emerging artists. Learn more about Cantate here, including our pledge to equity.
Want to sing with us? Cantate singers are auditioned community volunteers from Montgomery County and surrounding areas in the D.C. region. Auditions for Cantate’s Chamber Singers and Concert Choir are held in June each year. Tenors and basses are welcome to audition anytime.
Victoria Gau, Artistic Director
Lauded by critics for her “strong sense of style and drama” (The Washington Post) and her “enthusiastic and perceptive conducting,” conductor Victoria Gau brings a wide range of musical experience and expertise to her work. She has been the artistic director of Cantate since 2019 and founded Cantate Concert Choir in 2021. In addition to her role as Artistic Director of Cantate, she is in her 30th season as Artistic Director and Conductor of Capital City Symphony (D.C.). Read more about Maestra Gau.
Andrew Earle Simpson, Keyboard Artist
Andrew Earle Simpson, Cantate Chamber Singers’ keyboard artist since 2007, is ordinary (full) professor and founder/director of the Master of Music, Stage Music Emphasis Composition program at the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art at The Catholic University of America and a composer whose most recent projects reflect an interest in theatrical music and humanistic subjects. Read more about Andrew Earle Simpson.
CANTATE CHAMBER SINGERS
Soprano
Annette Anfinrud
Clara Capili
Paula Chipman
Caitlin Garry
Sarah Kerr
Ellen Kliman
Kyleigh Kutz
Chelsea Bromstad Lee
Maria Lostoski
Alto
Stephanie Cabell
Carolyn A. Chuhta
Deirdre Feehan
Phyllis Fong
Martha J. Hersman
Jeanne Morin
Patricia Pillsbury
Deborah Silberman
Tenor
Trent Buatte
Gabriel Krotkov
Andy Miller-Peterson
Jack Mountain
David O’Dette
Doug Throckmorton
Bass
Ulf Ekernas
Ryan Farhat-Sabet
Thad Garrett
Devin Osborne
Alun Thomas
Dennis Tosh
John Wiecking
ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF & VOLUNTEERS
Cara Schaefer, Executive Director
Drew Cahoon, Production Manager
Martha J. Hersman, Chorus Manager, Chamber Singers
Chelsea Bromstad Lee, Program Design
Dennis Tosh, Copyeditor
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
William Newhouse, Board Chair
Roberto Ifill, Vice Chair
John Wiecking, Treasurer
Kent Mikkelsen, Secretary
Phyllis Fong
Sara M. Josey
Alison Ottenbreit
Lorna Neill, Cantate Chamber Singers Representative
Katherine Schnorrenberg, Cantate Concert Choir Representative
EX-OFFICIO
Victoria Gau
Cara Schaefer
ADVISORY BOARD
Judith F. Davis, Coordinator Emeritus, Young Composers’ Competition
Rosa Lamoreaux
Laurel Ohlson
Philip J. Padgett
Scott Tucker
Bruce D. Wilson
ABOUT carl dupont
Carl DuPont believes the future is interdisciplinary and champions bridging performance, pedagogy, and professional communication in groundbreaking ways.
Dr. DuPont is the co-author of Routledge’s The Presence Principle: Embodying Executive Presence to Lead with Impact. He has also written for The Laryngoscope, Voice and Speech Review, and the American National Biography of the Oxford University Press.
His voice resonates on the world premiere recordings of the Caldara Mass in A Major, The Death of Webern, his solo album The Reaction featuring art songs by Black composers, and the chamber music release The Best Cuisine, of which he is the librettist of the title piece with music composed by Carlos Simon, Jr.
His operatic career spans prestigious venues from Leipzig Opera and El Palacio de Bellas Artes to New York City Opera, Carnegie Hall, and the Glimmerglass Festival. He has performed under the baton of Riccardo Muti, Kurt Masur, Franz Welser-Möst, Anton Armstrong, and Riccardo Chailly with the Israel Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Recent roles include Colline in La Bohème, Stephen Kumalo in Lost in the Stars, Hawkins Fuller in Fellow Travelers, Don Basilio in The Barber of Seville, and Leporello in Don Giovanni.
Concert highlights include the title role in Elijah, and the bass soloist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, St. John Passion, and B Minor Mass. He has also sung the bass solos in Handel’s Messiah at the Kennedy Center, the baritone solo in Margaret Bonds’s Credo at the Oregon Bach Festival, and the Voice of God in Nathaniel Dett’s The Ordering of Moses.
As associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University, Dr. DuPont teaches applied voice and African American Art Song Composers at the Peabody Institute. As an Executive Education faculty member at Carey Business School and the Whiting School of Engineering, he facilitates interactive workshops around Public Speaking for Professionals, Executive Presence, and Improvisation. An inquisitive learner, and explorer, he has certified as a facilitator of workshops with LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method, Neurosomatic Intelligence®, and the GC Index®.
Dr. DuPont is a highly sought-after clinician who has taught at the Chautauqua Institute, Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, and Modern Music Festival. He has directed the Washington National Opera Institute, formerly of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, since 2022. Artists under his tutelage have gone on to prestigious appointments in the President’s Own U.S. Marine Band, and U.S. Army Field Band, as well as solo contracts at the Chicago Lyric and New York City Metropolitan Opera Houses.
Education:
DMA in Vocal Pedagogy and Performance + Miller School of Medicine Internship, University of Miami
MM + Performer’s Certificate, Indiana University
BM + Performer’s Certificate, Eastman School of Music
About the Ensemble
This season, Cantate’s instrumental ensembles are underwritten by a generous bequest from the estate of Marilynn C. Flood.
Violin 1
Ryo Usami*
Hangul Kim
Violin 2
Chayerim Smith
Eleanor Shin
Viola
Jen Rende
Jim Kelly
Cello
Fiona Thompson
Susanna Mendlow
Bass
Marta Bradley
Eric Seay
Guitar
Alec Green
Percussion
Tom Maloy
*Concert Leader
TEXTS
A Procession Winding Around Me: Four Civil War Poems
Jeffery Van, composer; poems by Walt Whitman
By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame
By the bivouac’s fitful flame,
A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow;—but first I note,
The tents of the sleeping army, the fields’ and woods’ dim outline,
The darkness, lit spots of kindled fire—the silence;
Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving;
The shrubs and trees, (as I left my eyes they seem to be stealthily watching me;)
While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wond’rous thoughts,
Of life and death—of home and the past and loved, and of those that are far away;
A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground,
By the bivouac’s fitful flame.
Beat! Beat! Drums!
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is studying;
Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride;
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain,
So fierce you whirr and pound, you drums—so shrill you bugles blow.
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities—over the rumble of wheels in the streets;
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? no sleepers must sleep in those beds,
No bargainers’ bargains by day—no brokers or speculators—would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums—you bugles wilder blow.
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley—stop for no expostulation,
Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer,
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,
Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties,
Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.
Look Down Fair Moon
Look down fair moon and bathe this scene,
Pour softly down night’s nimbus floods on faces ghastly, swollen, purple,
On the dead on their backs with arms toss’d wide,
Pour down your unstinted nimbus sacred moon.
Reconciliation
Word over all, beautiful as the sky!
Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost;
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil’d world:
…For my enemy is dead—a man divine as myself is dead;
I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin—I draw near;
I bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
Mass in Exile
Mark Buller, composer; Leah Lax, librettist
I. For Want of Refuge (Miserere)
Mercy! They cry, mercy.
Have mercy! Hear the cry.
They cry from the deep.
Where, oh where is home?
When the children come home,
When they come, only then,
I am home.
II. Credo in Exile
Pray.
Pray, child. Pray.
BARITONE
I tried, but I was a child.
CHORUS
Pray, child.
BARITONE
My God,
You were my Master, Taskmaster
CHORUS
Pray, child.
Lift your eyes and pray.
Pray you won’t fall.
BARITONE
My black deepest well.
My God and my Hell.
Your Eyes ever watching—
I stood on the edge.
Oh, my sins…
CHORUS
The Lord God is merciful, full of grace,
Patient, true, and kind.
Forgiving.
BARITONE
They buried me in words without song.
Words they made me love—words without song.
I couldn’t see, and always the promise
of indemnity.
Now to find promise
in questions that remain.
CHORUS
God is questions.
God is nothingness.
God is song
without words.
III. Peaceable Kingdom Gloria
Oh, scent my bed with cinnamon,
Taste the honey, drink the wine.
I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.
My desert olive silver and strong
I drink your sweet oil. I lie in your shade.
Our love is flame and fire, fierce as death.
Hold my hand, my love. I hear your song.
Don’t fade, my love—I hear your song.
Oh, scent my bed with cinnamon,
Taste the honey, drink the wine.
I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.
Now arise, arise from the desert, and run away.
IV. As Water Flows Away (Prayer for the Government)
Do you think you speak justice? Do you dare to judge?
May your bullets of greed melt may they fall
as a stolen child who never sees the day.
May you vanish as we vanish,
as water flows away
into the wreck of the world.
V. Mercy (Kyrie)
If I have no mercy, what am I?
Without your mercy, who am I?
If not now, then ay-mah-tie?
If not now, then when?
VI. Earth Sanctus: Body and Blood
Kadosh
Kadosh
Kadosh
Holy
Holy
Holy
Water.
Oh, sky of breath, oh holy earth,
Where hides our peace, poor broken earth,
Our earth of life, of love, of breath unfinished. Death.
So holy.
Kadosh.
VII. When All Else Falls Away (Benedictus)
CHORUS
Kadosh. Kadosh.
BARITONE
When world and words fall away,
I will follow the question:
How to find mercy?
CHORUS
When world and words fall away,
I will follow the question:
How to find mercy
Now to find mercy
How to find mercy
In the wreck of this unfinished song.
Holy.
Let peace be without words.
“Let it come
like wildflowers,
suddenly, because the field
must have it: wildpeace.”
—poet Yehudah Amichai
A NOTE OF THANKS
Cantate would like to thank…
- the generous supporter who sponsored the Chamber Singers’ concert venues for the 2026–2027 season
- the staff and residents of Ingleside at Rock Creek for providing rehearsal space for the chorus
- our volunteers: box office staff, ushers, chorus managers, program designer, proofreader, and more
Cantate’s 2026–2027 Concert Season is supported in part by funding from the Montgomery County government and the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, the Maryland State Arts Council, and a generous endowment from the estate of Marilynn C. Flood.
Cantate is also supported by the generous donations and underwriting of individuals and corporations, whose support we warmly welcome.
Learn more about Cantate’s donors and how you can support Cantate.
Join us for Cantate’s next concert: gloria!
Saturday, December 6, 2026 • 5:00 p.m.
Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church|
6601 Bradley Blvd.
Bethesda, Md. 20817
Nothing embodies the joy of the holiday season quite like Vivaldi’s ebullient Gloria, the ecstatic centerpiece of Cantate Concert Choir’s December concert. Joined by a chamber orchestra, our symphonic choir transports and uplifts with a program that also includes Francesco Durante’s Magnificat, complemented by contemporary celebrations of the season by John Rutter, Eric Whitacre, and Ola Gjeilo to inspire wonder and hope.
Featuring soprano Amy Broadbent and mezzo-soprano Magdalena Wòr
At this concert, Cantate will collect shelf-stable food items for Manna Food Center.
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