This year’s spring concerts by the Island Community Chorus were another triumph for the more than 65-member choir.
The show was conducted by chorus director William Peek, with pianist Molly Sturges providing all the accompaniment.
From the first notes of Let Justice Reign, a rousing call to righteousness by Handel, the chorus soared throughout Sunday afternoon’s performance at the Old Whaling Church, drawing cheers and a standing ovation at the end.
The program’s centerpiece was Five Mystical Songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams, based on writings by the 17th-century Welsh poet-priest George Herbert about his relationship with God.
“I find these songs to be among the most profound, beautiful and human pieces of music,” Mr. Peek told the audience.
The cycle — four gentle meditations and a final, resounding hymn of praise — featured soloist David Behnke, whose supple baritone burnished Herbert’s simple, but deeply devotional verses and blended gorgeously with the chorus.
A pair of duets from what Mr. Peek called “folk operas” followed, with soprano Becky Williams and tenor Dorian Lopes singing sprightly works from Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Smetana’s The Bartered Bride.
Smetana’s music often celebrated Czech folk culture, Mr. Peek said, while The Magic Flute is steeped in German folklore.
Vaughan-Williams, too, was influenced as a composer by his love of British traditional music, said Mr. Peek, who is himself a skilled folk musician as well as the organist and music director for Union Chapel and the First Congregational Church of West Tisbury.
The chorus also sang a richly chromatic setting of the 1941 ballad I’m Glad There is You, by American clarinetist and bandleader Jimmy Dorsey.
First popular in the early days of World War II, the song was arranged for chorus by the 21st-century composer David von Kampen, Mr. Peek said.
Ms. Sturges, whose strong but sensitive piano accompaniment gave a sense of intimacy to the performances, sat out the final number, an uplifting a cappella rendition of the slavery-era spiritual Soon I Will Be Done.
Arranged by William L. Dawson, a renowned 20th-century chorus director and composer who founded the music school at what is now Tuskegee University, the song celebrates the end of earthly suffering and a joyful reunion with loved ones in the promised land.
Beneath the lofty, painted ceiling of the Whaling Church, it rang out in triumph from the voices on stage.
The next pinnacle of the Island Community Chorus’s performing year will come July 4 at the Tabernacle on Oak Bluffs, Mr. Peek told the audience.
The chorus will be holding information sessions soon for people interested in joining, he said.
The Island Community Chorus website is islandcommunitychorus.com.
This article appears in April 17, 2026.