The Little Match Girl Passion

Join Little City Concerts for Bridge Voices performing the Pulitzer Prize winning work The Little Match Girl Passion, by David Lang. Lang’s achingly beautiful work for four singers, each of whom plays a small percussion setup, weaves the Hans Christian Anderson story “The Little Match Girl” with texts used by JS Bach in his St Matthew Passion; the entire piece is composed in the tradition of Bach’s Passions, and it’s no coincidence that we’re presenting this piece at the start of the Christian Lenten Season. Lang writes, “the word passion comes from the Latin word for suffering. There is no Bach in my piece and there is no Jesus—rather the suffering of the Little Match Girl has been substituted for Jesus’s, elevating (I hope) her sorrow to a higher plane.

Our nonprofit partner for this event will be Homestretch, with 50% of our ticket sales being donated to them. The mission of Homestretch is to help families who are experiencing homelessness become self-sufficient by giving them the skills, knowledge, and hope they need to become productive participants in the community. Homestretch provides secure, transitional housing along with holistic support services that tackle the underlying causes of homelessness. By addressing these challenges at their core, Homestretch empowers individuals and families to build stable, self-sufficient futures, breaking the cycle of poverty for good.