A Chorus of Angels

Seraphic Fire, a Miami-based choral ensemble with a cool name, broke into pop music in 2005 when it lent its soaring collective voice to Shakira's platinum album Oral Fixation Vol. 2. With that, it became the second choir in history to ascend the Billboard charts. Seraphic Fire reached another milestone that year when it commissioned 28-year-old Shawn Crouch's The Road from Hiroshima: A Requiem. Crouch based the work on poems by the writer, psychotherapist, and gerontologist (a scientist who studies human aging) Marc Kamisky. It was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in composition. Not bad for a group founded in 2002.

Seraphic Fire opens this season with El Fuego Seráfico: Cuban Baroque and Beyond, an impressively titled collaboration with the Firebird Chamber Orchestra. The concert features works by Esteban Salas and a commissioned piece, “Mi Amada para Mi,” by rising talent Alvaro Bermudez. The concert kicks off at 8 p.m. at the Corpus Christi Catholic Church (3220 NW Seventh Ave., Miami). It runs till September 29 at theaters and churches across South Florida.
Sept. 24-29, 2008