Church of the Epiphany
1317 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20005Accessibility informationVenue information
Student $10 · Orchestra $45 · Premium Orchestra $70
Buy tickets for Pathways of Light
Washington Master Chorale · 2026–27 Season
Pathways of Light
The songs of ordinary people, raised into art.
Performance and ticket information
Watch Online
$45
Watch a recording of the concert at home. A viewing link will be emailed approximately two days after the performance and will be available for one week.
Buy virtual ticketsBefore it belonged to composers, this music belonged to anyone who could carry a tune.
Antonín Dvořák spent a career proving that was enough. His Four Choruses, Op. 29 take the folk melodies of his own country and treat them with the seriousness reserved for sacred text. Béla Bartók went walking into the Hungarian countryside with notebooks and came back with treasure.
Then the room itself changes. In Ēriks Ešenvalds’s Northern Lights, the singers set water-tuned glasses ringing and power chimes shimmering beneath an old Latvian text about a boy watching the sky. The sound doesn’t seem to arrive from the front of the church so much as gather overhead.
And the afternoon closes with R. Nathaniel Dett — who found in Dvořák’s example the permission to bring that same devotion to the American spiritual. The Chariot Jubilee is where that tradition arrives.
Four composers. Two continents. One shared conviction that the songs people sing to one another are worth everything art can bring to them.
The program also looks forward with two new American works: Andrew Vu’s A Golden Day and Kabanya Vinson’s All Creatures of Our God and King, receiving its world premiere.
Come hear where they lead.
Program Highlights
- Antonín DvořákFour Choruses, Op. 29
- Béla BartókFour Slavic Folk Songs Sz. 70
- Ēriks EšenvaldsAncient Prairie & Northern Lights
- R. Nathaniel DettThe Chariot Jubilee, and spiritual settings
- Andrew VuA Golden Day
- Kabanya VinsonAll Creatures of Our God and King (World Premiere)
Artistic Director
Featured Artists
World Premiere
All Creatures of Our God and King
Kabanya Vinson introduces her arrangement of All Creatures of Our God and King, receiving its world premiere at Pathways of Light. Captions are included in the video.
Artistic Director
Thomas Colohan
Artistic Director
Award-winning conductor, composer, and teacher Thomas Colohan has served as Artistic Director of the Washington Master Chorale since its founding in 2009. The Washington Post has acclaimed Colohan's work with the Master Chorale as "skillfully wrought and moving." He has led choruses at Carnegie Hall, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington National Cathedral, The Library of Congress, Prague's Rudolphinum Concert Hall, and the Stephansdom in Vienna. Colohan is active as a guest conductor, teacher, and clinician on both the East and West Coasts, and has served on the faculties of George Mason University, Northern Virginia Community College, and the distinguished Walden School Creative Musicians Retreat in Dublin, N.H. He has received a number of well-regarded choral commissions from churches and schools including St. Luke Catholic Church in McLean, Va., and the Montgomery County Public Schools. In his choral/orchestral engagements he has conducted members of the Prague Radio Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra, the San Jose Symphony, the California Chamber Symphony, and the Richmond Symphony. Colohan has earned numerous honors, including regular recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts and the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. He has twice been the recipient of a Choralis Foundation Washington Area Choral Excellence Award.
Before coming to the Washington Master Chorale, Colohan served as Director of Choral Activities at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, Calif., Music Director of the Santa Clara Chorale, and Founder and Artistic Director of the James River Singers in Richmond, Va. His teachers have included renowned choral musicians such as Robert Shaw, Dale Warland, Morten Lauridsen, Helmuth Rilling, Donald McCullough, and William Dehning. Colohan has held the post of Music Director for a number of well-known churches, including All Souls Church, Unitarian, in Washington, D.C., St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Palo Alto, Calif., and Little River United Church of Christ in Annandale, Va., and has served in the Virginia public school system as Choral Director for Henrico High School in Henrico County and Associate Choral Director at Gar-Field High School in Prince William County. A lyric baritone who maintains an active voice studio, Mr. Colohan has sung professionally with the Washington Bach Consort and on Public Television’s Great Performances series at the Kennedy Center with the Washington Opera Chorus. He holds a Master of Music in Choral Music from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.
Featured Artist
Dr. Lloyd Mallory
Guest Conductor
LLOYD MALLORY, JR., is a native of Washington, DC, Lloyd Mallory has built a reputation for conducting great choirs at the HBCU. With collegiate service spanning over three decades, to Mallory’s resume Talladega College in Alabama; Kentucky State University, in Frankfort, Delaware State University of Dover as former Chair of Music and DCA; Clark Atlanta University in Georgia and during 1996-2006 Oakwood University as its former director of the renowned Aeolians. Mallory currently is Full Professor of Music and DCA at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. Most recent, Mallory has joined the distinguished faculty at the Westminster Choir College of Rider University as the director of their Jubilee Singers. This ensemble is an auditioned group and sings music primarily of Afro-American Composers/Arrangers. Mallory sang with the acclaimed Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers of Los Angeles for six seasons 2001-2007.
Mallory is the founding director of the Lloyd Mallory Singers, a Grammy Nominated organization and has recorded with the Breath of Life Record label. In the immediate works is a television documentary in which the singers will record one of its signature pieces, I GOT DE KEY that will be the documentary’s theme.
As tenor soloist, Mallory recently performed with the Washington Master Chorale and premiered a commissioned work by African American Composer, Chinerye Obasi entitiled, THREE MARITIME SONGS last April. Throughout Mallory’s career, he has been soloist with Huntsville Symphony, SUNY orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, the Philadelphia Symphony, as well as abroad.
As a Chorus Master, Mallory has prepared choirs for several professional orchestras’ major works to include the Huntsville, Knoxville, Nashville, Birmingham, Los Angeles, Philadelphia orchestras. Mallory prepared a chorus for another premiere in August in a double concerto for Cello and Piano entitled DEMOCRACY by Kendall Ramseur and Charlie Wilson. Mallory will serve as guest conductor for excerpts of Handel’s MESSIAH at two historical churches in Philadelphia this December; Ebenezer Seventh-day Adventist Church (December 5th) and Tindley Temple (December 6th). You are invited to hear these excerpts of MESSIAH executed by Mallory’s church chorale at the Capitol Hill Seventh-day Adventist Church, December 19, 2026 at 11 a.m. in Washington, DC
Mallory’s music education includes UCLA, earning his Doctorate in Musical Arts in Wind, Orchestral & Choral Conducting; Morgan State University in Baltimore earning a Masters of Arts with duel emphasis in Conducting and Voice; and Oakwood University in Alabama with a Bachelor’s of Arts in Music with emphasis in Flute and Vocal performance.
A major “fun” fact: Mallory auditioned and was selected to sing “Lift Ev’ry Voice & Sing” for the great entertainer and humanitarian, Michael Jackson who help pay for his undergraduate education for four years while at Oakwood University.
Featured Artist
Edward Washington II
Tenor
Born in England and raised in Saudi Arabia, Edward Washington II is a distinguished lyric tenor. His career encompasses engagements with premier companies, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Detroit Opera, Opera Omaha, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and his artistry has earned three Grammy nominations and two wins.
Washington’s repertoire spans Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte; Robbins in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess; Puccini minor roles in Turandot, La Bohème, Gianni Schicchi, and Tosca; Ralph and Nanki-Poo in Gilbert and Sullivan; and Mr. Scratch in Moore’s The Devil and Daniel Webster. Edward’s solo concert appearances include Mozart’s Requiem with Alexandria Symphony, Dett’s Chariot Jubilee with Choral Arts Society of NJ, tenor arias with Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, and Hailstork’s I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes with Duquesne University, Urban Choral Arts Society, and Morgan State University. He’s also been featured with Vox Fortura and the American Spiritual Ensemble. He has premiered nine American works and champions new music often.
Last season’s highlights include Solange Knowles’s Eldorado Ballroom, a Carnegie Hall debut, Donizetti’s Rita as Beppe, and Thompson’s Mask in the Mirror as Paul Laurence Dunbar. Edward was also Ben in Hailstork’s Robeson with Trilogy Opera, tenor soloist in Orff’s Carmina Burana with Alexandria Symphony, the featured vocalist with Wheeling Symphony Orchestra’s Celebrate America tour, and a featured soloist in the Metropolitan Opera’s Grammy-winning production of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. He also was the inaugural first-place winner of the Edward Jackson Sacred Music Competition. This season, he is excited to debut with Washington Master Chorale and is a proud graduate of Morgan State University, making the DMV a third home for him.
Featured Artist
Evelyn Simpson-Curenton
Organist
Evelyn Simpson-Curenton is a leading African-American composer, pianist, organist, and vocalist. At age two, she began to play the piano; at five, she began formal piano lessons; by age nine, she was accompanying her renowned musical family, The Singing Simpsons, in public performances. She earned a Bachelor of Music in Music Education and Voice from Temple University.
Simpson-Curenton has performed with musical organizations such as Philadelphia’s National Opera Ebony (renamed Opera North) and was choral director and arranger for the Howard University Drama Department’s production of “Mahalia’s Song.” She has been commissioned to write works for the American Guild of Organists, George Shirley, the late Duke Ellington, and her sister, the late Joy Simpson, arranged music for Kathleen Battle, Jessye Norman, and the Porgy and Bess Chorus of the New York Metropolitan Opera, and has performed with musical organizations such as Philadelphia’s National Opera Ebony (later renamed Opera North). In 1979, some of her compositions were performed by the National Symphony and by the Minnesota Orchestra, with Joy appearing as soloist.
Based in the Washington D.C. area, Simpson-Curenton is Music Director of the Washington Performing Arts Society’s Men and Women of the Gospel and an associate of the Smithsonian Institution. She has given lectures and participated in workshops on early 18th-century black religious music and the music of African-Americans during the Civil Rights era.
Featured Artist
Sophia Kim Cook
Principal Collaborative Pianist
Born in Montréal, Canada, Sophia Kim Cook pursued piano studies first at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal, finishing at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music, receiving both her Bachelors with Honors and Masters of Music there.
Described as a “a steadying presence at the piano” (Washington Post) and a “virtuosic piano backbone” (DC Arts Beats), Ms. Kim Cook is a sought out collaborative and orchestral pianist, having played with a myriad of soloists and ensembles, including the National Symphony Orchestra, the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, The National Philharmonic, and the American Pops Orchestra. Sophia is collaborative pianist for the National Symphony Orchestra Youth Fellowship Program and Summer Music Institute, where she works with highly talented high school and college students. She also has collaborated with both the NSO and the Kennedy Center Education programs in numerous shows, including “4 Strings + 88 Keys = Duo!”, “Pulse”, “Sail Around the Sun”, and “Planets”.
She is the principal pianist for the Washington Master Chorale as well as a musician with the Chamber Dance Project, a company that emphasizes the partnership between musicians and dancers, joining both live music and contemporary ballet on stage together. She is also part of Sound Impact, which is a collective of musicians dedicated to igniting positive change through education programs and concerts, and educational residencies for Incarcerated Youth. Along with her busy performing schedule, Ms. Kim Cook has dedicated her free time to teaching early childhood music at Levine Music for their Outreach program in Southeast D.C.
Featured Artist
Foster Wang
Violinist
Violinist Foster Wang has been praised by The New York Times for his "seductive" playing and by Musical Opinion for his "impressive virtuosity" and "playing of great assurance." He is a member of "The President’s Own" United States Marine Band, and has given solo recitals in such renowned concert halls as Wigmore Hall in London and the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris. A devoted chamber musician, Foster has performed with Yo-Yo Ma and members of the Silk Road Ensemble, and has been featured on the nationally syndicated radio program From the Top. From 2012–2016, Foster was a fellow at the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, where he had the privilege of serving as concertmaster under such distinguished conductors as Michael Tilson Thomas.
Born and raised in New York City, Foster began his musical education at the age of four with his parents, both of whom were professional violinists in China. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University and a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School. His principal teachers include David Chan, Lynn Chang, Naoko Tanaka, and Rafail Sobolevsky.
World Premiere
Kabanya Vinson
Arranger
Kabanya Vinson is a pianist, composer, arranger, producer, and music educator whose musical journey began in Albany, Georgia, where she began playing the piano by ear at the age of three and studying classical piano at the age of five. She continued her classical training throughout her formative years and later earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from the University of Georgia.
Throughout her career, Vinson has worked with an array of renowned recording and performing artists, including Aretha Franklin, Michael McDonald, and Jennifer Holliday. She has also spent more than four decades serving as a pianist, keyboardist, organist, choir director, worship leader, and music director. Her work has taken her internationally, including organizing and musically directing choral tours in Taiwan, South Korea, Italy, Vatican City, and Greece.
One of Vinson’s most significant musical influences was her aunt, Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, composer, scholar, cultural historian, and founder of the Grammy Award-winning African American women’s a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock. In 2007, Reagon commissioned Vinson to transcribe original works by Reagon and members of Sweet Honey in the Rock into choral scores for performance by choirs and ensembles. The project introduced Vinson to the art of choral transcription and became an important part of her development as an arranger.
In 2010, Vinson released her debut recording, TheMOSAIC, showcasing her work as a singer, songwriter, composer, arranger, and producer.
Vinson’s musical leadership has included ten years as Minister of Worship and the Arts at Ray of Hope Christian Church in Decatur, Georgia, and seven years as Minister of Music at Shiloh Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia. In addition to performing, composing, and arranging, Vinson is a dedicated piano educator who considers teaching and nurturing the musical gifts of others an important part of her life’s work.
Vinson is the proud mother of four adult children—Robert III, Paris, Victoria, and Christina—all musicians and creatives in their own right. For Vinson, music has remained a lifelong language—one that began at the piano as a little girl in Albany, Georgia, and has carried her through a lifetime of performing, teaching, composing, arranging, and creating. Whether at the piano, in the classroom, or writing music for others to perform, she continues to find her greatest musical joy in creating music that connects, inspires, and gives voice to her own stories, emotions, and experiences in ways that words alone cannot express.