MUSIC | SANTA FE
‘O Fortuna!’: Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra and Chorus concludes season with ‘Carmina Burana’
The 2025-26 season of The Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra and Chorus is coming to an end with Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana.”
All three singers for the piece, Amy Owens, Spencer Hamlin and Ed Parks, have performed in New Mexico before; however, this will be their debut with the Santa Fe Symphony.
Owens said “Carmina Burana” is one of those pieces that reminds you that you are alive, whether you are performing it or hearing it.
“You get this resonance that just goes through the body,” she said, “and everyone I know gets chills immediately from the first note that everyone plays together.”
She said her approach is musical rather than dramatic, and there is an extreme range of vocal ranges for sopranos and baritones.
“You could say that both the baritone and the soprano parts are written for two different voice types within one role,” Owens said. “The baritone has to sing very high, like in a falsetto, and also very low, and the soprano has to sing very high and also very low and lyrically.”
“As I grow as an artist, I find deeper ways of exploring my voice through this music,” she said, “and as a result, there’s more phrasing and more emotional connection and more ways of shaping this music to have its greatest impact.”
Owens said she has performed the piece over 30 times, and each time it speaks to the heart.
“At the end, it’s almost impossible not to get overwhelmed,” Owens said, “and for me that means I cry a little bit at the end, just because (the) resonance and the power is so intense.”
The piece is a secular oratorio, Owens said, which is a combination of different poems. She said while there is no narrative in a linear way, to her, there is a story of love.
“I don’t come in until the third section as this innocent young woman who is blooming,” Owens said. “She is in bloom, and she is one of the most famous pieces that’s very, very beautiful, just really beautiful, called ‘In trutina.’”
Hamlin said he understands the pieces as a collection of poems organized into different themes with about five sections. He said where he comes in, “In taberna quando sumus,” is surrounded by drinking songs and talks about things like drinking, gambling and lust.
“I think overall, it’s more of like a mosaic kind of situation,” Hamlin said.
His part as the tenor soloist, he said, is only about three minutes of singing. Then for the rest of the show he gets to sit and enjoy the music.
“It’s really hard for me not to just be like bobbing my head, or like tapping my toe the entire time, it’s just really fun music,” Hamlin said, “and it’s all over the map in terms of emotions and different vibes.”
Parks said the piece is among the best for baritones, with orchestral and solo parts. He performed the piece once before in Prague and he always knew the second he was offered to perform it again, he would.
He said he does not see much of a full front-to-back story in the piece, but rather what makes it special and interesting is the emotion behind it and how each song flows into the next.
“The energy is dramatic, and it’s also light, and it’s fun, it’s also loud,” Parks said.
“You kind of feel it in your bones, but it’s an incredible piece of music, and I think top to bottom, as you move through it, as we move through it, it’s going to offer a variety of soundscapes,” he said.
Elizabeth Secor is an arts fellow from the New Mexico Local ϼ Fellowship program. You can reach her at esecor@abqjournal.com.