Serenade to Music

Seraphic Fire opens its 2026-2027 season with a choral and chamber orchestra program marking the arrival of new Artistic Director James K. Bass. Serenade to Music takes place Friday, October 16, at First United Methodist Church in Coral Gables. The program spans more than three centuries of vocal music, with works exploring beauty, grief, devotion and the expressive range of the human voice. Conducted by Bass, the concert includes Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music, a lyrical work for piano, solo violin and chorus. The program also features Eric Whitacre’s unaccompanied When David Heard, Buxtehude’s Baroque meditation Ad Manus and Caroline Shaw’s To the Hands, a contemporary response that places strings and voices in dialogue with earlier sacred music. Founded in South Florida in 2002, Seraphic Fire is a Grammy-nominated professional vocal ensemble with a national touring and recording history. The ensemble has released 16 full-length albums, including Grammy-nominated recordings of A Seraphic Fire Christmas and Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requiem, and continues to support vocal music education through youth, collegiate and professional training initiatives.