Sno-King Chorale concert to remember Oso slide victims

Published 1:30 am Friday, March 17, 2017

It’s been 50 years since a mudslide killed 116 children and 28 adults in a school in south Wales.

It’s been three years since a mudslide killed five children and 38 adults in their homes east of Oso.

Twice on Saturday, the Sno-King Community Chorale will present composer Sir Karl Jenkins’ “Cantata Memoria — For the Children,” written in memory of the Welsh children. The performances also will remember the victims of the Oso slide.

Members of the chorale in January joined an international choir to perform the North American premiere of the cantata at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The concerts Saturday will mark the West Coast premiere of the work.

Chorale director Frank DeMiero, who suffered some health issues this winter, has asked Jonathan Griffith to direct the concerts. Griffith conducted the Carnegie Hall concert, said chorale member Barb Smith.

“We’re in good hands with Jonathan,” Smith said.

The disaster in Aberfan, Wales, occurred when relentless autumn rains added to the weight of a nearby coal mine’s tailings heap and it slid, taking the landscape with it, and hit the school like a bomb.

Then a young composer at London’s Royal Academy of Music, Jenkins remembers well the day of the disaster. Two years ago, Jenkins was commissioned to compose a work commemorating the 50th anniversary of the tragedy.

The result is a stunning piece of music and poetry — dramatic, somber, ultimately beautiful and celebrating childhood — moving from darkness to light, DeMiero said.

“Because of our own local tragedy three years ago along Highway 530 between Arlington and Darrington, we will be remembering our own losses also as we perform this moving piece,” DeMiero said. The mayors of Arlington and Darrington have been invited to attend, he said.

Soloists Jennifer Bromagen, soprano, and Jacob Herbert, bass-baritone, will join the Sno-King chorale, a children’s chorus and an orchestra to perform Jenkins’ cantata. The libretto is in English, Spanish, French, German, Latin and Welsh, DeMiero said.

“This promises to be a memorable concert,” he said.

If you go

The Sno-King Community Chorale, along with a children’s choir and orchestra, will present the West Coast premiere of Sir Karl Jenkins “Cantata Memoria — For the Children,”commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1966 disaster that killed 116 children when a coal mine slid into a school in Aberfan, South Wales. The concert, which also will remember the victims of the Oso landslide in 2014, is to be presented at 3 p.m. and again at 7 p.m. March 18 at Trinity Lutheran Church, 6215 196th St., Lynnwood. Tickets are $10 to $20, and are available in advance at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2795090.