Both Amy Beach, America's first important woman composer, and Randall Thompson, one of the most elegant individualists of American music, had links to Harvard University. Largely self-taught, Mrs. Beach's physician husband was a lecturer in anatomy at Harvard; Thompson was a student and eventually a professor there. A successful concert soloist in the circle of Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mrs. Beach stopped touring with her marriage to Beach in 1885, but continued composing, including her Gaelic Symphony, the first by an American woman. Her many and varied works show a fluent and passionate romanticism. Thompson, a professor at California University in 1931, director of the Curtis Institute of Music in 1939 and professor at Harvard in 1948, was best known in his lifetime as a composer of choral music, but he produced an opera and several fine instrumental works, including 3 symphonies. One of America's oldest college choruses, founded in 1834, the 41-strong, mixed HUC performs 12 amazing works by the two composers, mostly Christian choral works. Our favorites are the a cappella pieces 'The Eternal Dove,' 'The Best of Rooms,' 'Felices Ter' and 'Alleluia,' all by Thompson, and 'Help Us O God!, Op. 50' and 'Peace I Leave With You' by Beach. The organ-accompanied songs, including 'Choose Something Like a Star,' 'Evening Hymn, Op. 125 No.2,' 'Te Deum' and 'Jubilate' are equally lovely. The Choir sings these intricate, little-known masterworks with a spirited grace and perfection. Truly lovely!