When composer Tim Keyes was in search of inspiration for his new oratorio, he knew all he had to do was return to “The Well.”

“The Well,” based on an episode from the Gospel of John, tells of Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman, in which He, a Jew, gently erodes the cultural divide between them and introduces her to the concept of “living water,” a metaphor for salvation and eternal life.

Keyes first embarked on the project many years ago, in the early 1990s, while he served as music director for Marty Haugen, himself a prolific composer of liturgical music.

“I abandoned it, because I just wasn’t happy with how it was coming out,” Keyes says. “Then the Pope this year declared a Holy Year of Mercy, and I thought this was a perfect time to revisit it. But I revisited in a different way. I created something that lives somewhere between opera and Broadway. It has the emotional content of a Broadway production, but it has the musical content of an opera. It’s kind of a departure for me, but I think it works in a very interesting way.”

The oratorio, scored for eight soloists, choir and orchestra, will be given its premiere at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium tomorrow at 8 p.m., with the composer conducting the Tim Keyes Consort.

The program will also include works on themes of mercy and forgiveness by English Renaissance composer Richard Farrant (“Lord Who Throughout Thy Tender Mercy”), the Belgian-born French Romantic César Franck (his symphonic poem “Redemption”), and contemporary Irish composer Michael McGlynn (“Pie Jesu”).

You can find out more about it, Keyes the composer, and his consort, in my article in today’s Trenton Times.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2016/06/classical_music_tim_keyes_cons.html