Concert Season 2026-2027

Jake Runestad, “one of the best of the younger American composers” (Chicago Tribune), is an EMMY®-winning and GRAMMY®-nominated composer and conductor. Many acclaimed ensembles have recorded his music, including VOCES8, Washington National Opera, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Munich Radio Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Choir, the Netherlands Radio Choir, Seraphic Fire, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, and many more. Bellevue Chamber Chorus presents his “The Hope of Loving,” a multi-movement work for choir and string quartet. This expressive piece highlights the importance and impact of love — love shown to others and love shown to oneself, and it was recorded by professional American choir Conspirare and received a GRAMMY® nomination.

Norwegian composer and pianist Ola Gjeilo was born near Oslo in 1978 and moved to New York City in 2001 to begin his composition studies at the Juilliard School. Albums of Gjeilo’s choral music are some of the bestselling choral albums world-wide and include “Winter Songs” & “Dreamweaver”, featuring Tenebrae, Voces8 and the Choir of Royal Holloway. His global streams have now surpassed 330 million. The Bellevue Chamber Chorus presents two of his best-known works for choir, piano, and string quartet: “Luminous Night of the Soul,” and “Dark Night of the Soul.”  Intended to be performed together, these pieces will transport you into a new reality with their beautiful wash of sound. A brilliant pianist himself, Gjeilo has perfected an ethereal and soulful combination of strings and piano that has surely granted him a spot in music history books for generations to come.