Boston Choral Festival:
To the Hands

Friday, October 17, 2025 | 7:30 PM
Old South Church, Boston

The Program

Caroline Shaw: To the Hands
Noah Horn, Music Director

Join us at the iconic Cyclorama for an unforgettable evening concert featuring Caroline Shaw’s To the Hands, a bold and moving reflection on shelter, empathy, and the human condition. This special Boston Choral Festival performance will include students from Nipmuc, Arlington, and Westborough High Schools, who will spend the day in immersive workshops before joining Cantata Singers on stage.

Together, these young voices and seasoned professionals will bring Shaw’s powerful work to life—blending contemporary expression with timeless questions of compassion and community.

Don’t miss this evocative evening of music, collaboration, and shared purpose at the heart of Boston’s cultural scene.

What’s Interesting About This Concert

  • A Contemporary Masterwork: Caroline Shaw, the youngest-ever recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music, wrote To the Hands in response to themes of displacement, refuge, and human connection. Drawing on a 17th-century cantata by Buxtehude, Shaw reframes early sacred music through a modern, emotionally resonant lens. It’s music that feels urgent, questioning, and deeply human.

  • Text That Speaks Today: Shaw interweaves Latin texts with contemporary language, including lines like “how do you belong to a place?” and statistics on global displacement. The result is a striking juxtaposition—ancient and modern, sacred and social—that asks us to reflect on our own role in the world.

  • Voices of the Future: This performance includes high school singers from Nipmuc, Arlington, and Westborough, joining the professional Cantata Singers after a day of collaborative workshops. The inclusion of these young voices adds another layer of meaning to the piece’s themes of community, empathy, and shared humanity.

  • Approximately 2 hours. There will be no intermission.

  • Parking in Boston can be hard - but not impossible!

    • Limited on-street parking is available in the immediate area.

    • Atelier 505 Parking Garage (15 Warren Ave)

    • 100 Clarendon Street Garage

    • Back Bay Garage (85 St James Ave)

    • Approx. 10 minute walk from Back Bay on the MBTA Orange Line

    • Approx. 15 minute walk from Copley on the MBTA Green Line

    • Nearby bus lines: 9, 10, 11, 15, 43

  • Wear what makes you feel comfortable!

  • Patrons can access the elevator by going through the Music Center to the right of the Cyclorama entrance. Cyclorama is on Floor 1.

Supported in part by an Alfred Nash Patterson Grant from Choral Arts New England.