Ensemble to Premiere Works by Iranian, Irish Composers

During the fall semester of his first year at Wesleyan, Isaías Pagán De Jesús ’26 saw a flyer on the wall of the cafeteria in the Usdan University Center for the performance ensemble Collegium Musicum that said, “try out for a chance to go to Ireland.” “I thought ‘that sounds really cool, I’m probably not eligible, but why not give it a shot?’” said Pagán De Jesús, a Film Studies major and Global Engagement minor. “That’s how it all started.”  

A tenor, Pagán De Jesús auditioned by singing the Beatles tune “For No One” for Professor of Music and Chair and Professor of Medieval Studies Jane Alden. She started the ensemble in 2002 and describes Collegium Musicum as a way to connect with musicians from earlier times, with a focus on music from the distant past. The group explores the diverse vocal and instrumental repertoires of the medieval, Renaissance, and baroque periods of European music history. Responding to student interest in contemporary music, Alden also looks for ways in which the medieval relates to contemporary life and inspires current composers.

One of the final pieces composed by the late John Spencer Camp Professor of Music, Emeritus Alvin Lucier was “Antequam Abraham,” dedicated to the Collegium Musicum. “He was a huge fan of Renaissance polyphony,” Alden said of Lucier’s fondness for independent melodic lines or voices. “For years, he said he wanted to write a piece for us.” Alden said it was very special for the ensemble to premiere the work online in his presence in 2021.

Shortly afterward, Alden started commissioning new works for the group to sing. In May 2023, the ensemble premiered their first commissioned work, by Irish-American composer and Vanderbilt University student Grace O’Duffy, who Alden had met while working with the Dublin Youth Choir in 2020. In May 2024, the Collegium Musicum premiered new works by Iranian composer and Visiting Scholar in Music Arshia Rahmati. And at their spring concert on May 1 at 9:00 pm, Leyli’s Sky: Musical Constellations Across Time, the ensemble will premiere new pieces that draw on cosmic night sky themes by graduate music student Negar Soleymanifar (Leyli’s Letter) and Irish composer Seán Doherty (Luna Lánmas).

Soleymanifar, part of a new wave of Iranian female artists, said it was refreshing to sing with people from different musical backgrounds as a member of the ensemble in spring 2024. “The blend of medieval repertoire with contemporary pieces was especially meaningful,” Soleymanifar said. “It created a unique contrast that made each style stand out in its own way.”

For the new commission, Soleymanifar explored a 12th-century Persian poem by Nizami Ganjavi. “As I delved into the poem, I selected passages where the character Leyli expresses her raw emotions—her love, longing, and the quiet intensity of her sorrow,” Soleymanifar said.

Her resulting work, Leyli’s Letter, aims to capture the depth of the character’s yearning through layered choral textures, evoking both intimacy and distance. “I hope the audience can step into Leyli’s world, feeling both the pain and the beauty of a love so powerful that, despite life’s obstacles and the impossibility of union, never loses its strength—the power of a woman in love,” Soleymanifar said.  

Alden first connected with Doherty in 2023, when she took 12 undergraduate students in the ensemble to Ireland for a week and a half over spring break as part of a course-embedded study abroad offering. Doherty hosted the group at Dublin City University. Wesleyan students worked with a range of choral directors in diverse settings, and visited historic sites to undertake fieldwork, attend performances, and gain a basic understanding of indigenous and hybrid musical practices and instruments. This site-specific work has enriched performances on campus over the past two years.

“We experienced a lot of different music that I didn’t really expect to be exposed to, including traditional Irish music,” said Mallory Elliott ’23, a soprano who took part in the trip. “My favorite part was singing in cathedrals and churches. I’ll never sing in a place like that again probably. This one place we went to in Galway, I wanted to cry—it was just everything I’ve dreamed of singing and it was awesome,” said Elliott, a double major in Music and Psychology. 

Many of the students in the ensemble are not music majors, so they have a lot to learn about what it means to sing in a choir. “Everybody was really motivated and very interested in learning more about this music,” said graduate music student Garrett Groesbeck MA ’21, bass, who was the teaching assistant on the trip and is a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology. “They have such great perspectives.”

“Wesleyan students are always up for a challenge,” Alden said. “I love that openness.”