The auditioned Midcoast a cappella vocal ensemble VoXX: Voice of Twenty presents its summer concert series, Musical Miracles, led by Music Director John Mehrmann. The concerts will be held in four Midcoast venues over the last two weekends in June.

Many may feel in need of some miracles these days, so VoXX has chosen to feature works that span a wide range of the miraculous for this concert series. Songs both sacred and secular, large and small, celebrate the miracles of nature, of love, and of God.

Purcell’s In these delightful pleasant groves depicts the ever-miraculous return of “cheerful Spring.” Orlando Gibbons’s The Silver Swan and Jakob Arkadelt’s Il bianco e dolce cigno meditate on the beautiful dying song of a heretofore voiceless swan. Pieces by Mozart, Byrd, and Francisco López Capillas speak of the miracle of the Resurrection, while works by Josquin, Lassus, and Gjeilo marvel at the promise of mercy. Jonah’s Prayer, by VoXX Music Director John Mehrmann, is a hopeful retelling of Jonah’s escape from his fishy prison. Two other contemporary pieces–When the Earth Stands Still, by Don Macdonald, and The Peace of Wild Things, a setting of a Wendell Berry poem by Matthew J. Olson–offer promise of the hope and peace to be found in the nature. These are all miracles, caught and celebrated in gorgeous music from the 1500s to the present century.