Zephyr Brings Contremporary To Classic Cathedral Setting

Zephyr, Spokane’s classical contemporary music series, usually wafts its music through secular spaces. But once a year for the past three seasons, Zephyr has performed 20th-century religious music at St. John’s Cathedral under the auspices of The Cathedral and Arts Association.

St. John’s organist and music director Charles Bradley, Zephyr artistic director and pianist Kendall Feeney and soprano Darnell Preston will join other Spokane musicians for the Sunday afternoon concert.

Bradley believes religious music should be more than a thing of the past.

“It’s been an exciting experience for us,” Bradley says. “I’d always felt sad that the cathedral did not have the in-house resources to offer something on the cutting edge of contemporary music. It has been wonderful for the cathedral and this community to be a part of the Zephyr program to give a contemporary expression I think is necessary here in the Northwest and especially in Spokane.”

Feeney calls Sunday’s program “an extraordinary mix of the voices that American composers bring to sacred music.”

“These range from the neoclassical style of emigre Ingolf Dahl to the American impressionism of Arthur Shepherd; from the Jewish laments and praises of Herman Berlinski to the spiritual yearnings of Leonard Bernstein,” Feeney says.

The most recent work on Sunday’s program is Dan Locklair’s “Rubrics” for organ, written in 1988. The composer was a colleague of Bradley’s when they were both organists in Binghamton, N.Y. Locklair now heads the composition department at Wake Forest University.

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MEMO: Zephyr will perform at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. Tickets are $12 ($8 for students), available at G&B Select-aSeat outlets or call (800) 325-SEAT.