Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil & Works by Chesnokov, Featuring Basso-Profundo Glenn Miller

Sunday, May 17, 2026, 4:00 PM
St. Brigid's Parish, 122 N Pleasant St, Amherst
Amherst

All-Night Vigil, Rachmaninoff
Do not reject me, Chesnokov (basso-profundo concerto featuring Glenn Miller)
Spaseniye, Chesnokov

Illumine Vocal Arts Ensemble will perform Sergei Rachmaninoff’s sonorous masterpiece, the All- Night Vigil, on Sunday, May 17, 2026, at 4:00 PM at St. Brigid's Parish, 122 N. Pleasant St., Amherst.

Sometimes referred to as the Rachmaninoff Vespers, this work is actually a compilation of texts from three canonical hours of the Eastern Orthodox church service: Vespers, Matins, and the First Hour. And it does not last all night, but a bit over an hour, depending on tempos. Its fifteen movements soar and bloom, dividing an a cappella choir into as many as eight parts.

While the work is often identified with the Russian Orthodox church, movements 4 ("O Gladsome Light") and 5 (the "Nunc dimittis") are based on Kyivan Chant, a 16th–17th century Ukrainian musical tradition. In 2022, The National Academic Choir of Ukraine performed this section in a moving video mourning the destruction of Mariupol.

A challenging aspect to presenting this composition is its requirement for a basso profundo – a singer capable of singing notes an octave below the range of most male voices. For our performance, Illumine is fortunate to be joined by celebrated soloist Glenn Miller, one of the greatest low basses in the world. Miller was the featured soloist on Grammy-award winning Conspirare’s recording, “The Sacred Spirit of Russia,” and has performed and recorded the All-Night Vigil with leading professional choral ensembles throughout the United States and Europe. Concert-goers may recall Miller from his previous appearance with Illumine in their performance a year ago of Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles.

Two choral works by Rachmaninoff’s contemporary Pavel Chesnokov will round out the program: Spaseniye, and Do not reject me, a basso-profundo concerto featuring Miller as soloist.

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Born in 1873 in Imperial Russia, Rachmaninoff was a musical prodigy who was by 1900 an internationally acclaimed pianist and composer. He composed the All-Night Vigil in 1915, at the beginning of World War I. It premiered at The Cathedral of the Dormition in Moscow, as a benefit for war relief. The work was an immediate success; a contemporary reviewer wrote “perhaps never before has Rachmaninoff approached so close to the people, to their style, to their soul, as in this work. And, perhaps, this work in particular bespeaks a broadening of his creative flight, a conquest of new dimensions of the spirit, and, hence, a genuine evolution of his powerful talent.”

Following the 1918 Russian Revolution, Rachmaninoff fled Russia for America. His move proved prudent - in 1923, Soviet authorities began systematically censoring music. For decades the All- Night Vigil was banned from public performance, and only occasionally heard in closed concerts for Communist Party elites.

Rachmaninoff considered the All- Night Vigil one of his finest works, and hoped that it might be sung at his funeral, in Moscow. But that was not to be. Rachmaninoff died in California and was buried in Westchester County, New York. His legacy, however, is his quintessential expression of the romantic, yearning religious soul.