By Coral Gables Gazette staff
The Basilica of San Marco in Venice has two choir lofts, one on each side of the nave. In the 16th century, composers discovered that the distance between them — and the acoustic delay it created — was not a problem to be solved but a resource to be used. They began placing separate choirs in opposing positions and writing music that moved between them, voices answering voices across the expanse of the basilica, sound arriving at the listener from multiple directions at once. The effect was unlike anything available in a conventional concert hall. The audience was not in front of the music. The audience was inside it.
That tradition — known as cori spezzati, or broken choruses — shaped the development of the Baroque era and influenced composers across Europe. Claudio Monteverdi, who became maestro di cappella at San Marco in 1613, brought the style to its fullest expressive realization. The music written for that basilica remains among the most spatially conceived and acoustically ambitious in Western history.
On Friday, April 10, at 8 p.m., Seraphic Fire brings it to Coral Gables.
The ensemble closes its 23rd season with Surround Sound, a polychoral concert performed at the Church of the Little Flower in which the full forces of Seraphic Fire — choir and period instrument quartet — will be distributed throughout the space. The program includes Monteverdi’s Ave Regina and works by Tomás Luis de Victoria, Benjamin Britten, and others, composers separated by centuries but united by a shared idea: that sound can be shaped by space as much as by harmony.
A pre-concert conversation with Dr. James K. Bass, Seraphic Fire’s incoming artistic director, will be held one hour before the performance. Ticket prices were not available in materials provided for this preview; visit seraphicfire.org for current pricing and availability.
The farewell embedded in the program
There is a second story inside this concert. It is the first performance of Patrick Dupré Quigley’s final weekend as Seraphic Fire’s artistic director.
Quigley founded Seraphic Fire in Miami in 2002. In June 2026 he will transition to the role of artistic director laureate, concluding 24 years at the helm of an ensemble that began as a local chamber chorus and developed into one of the most recognized choral organizations in the United States. Under his direction, Seraphic Fire earned multiple GRAMMY nominations, was named the Miami Herald’s Favorite Nonprofit for 2025, and was described by Gramophone magazine as possessing “mellifluous, crystalline artistry.” El Nuevo Herald called it “one of the best excuses for living in Miami.”
The choice of a polychoral program aligns with a central through line in Quigley’s work. His career has consistently engaged with music that uses space as a compositional element — repertoire that asks performers and listeners to reconsider where sound originates and how it moves. The Venetian tradition represents an early and influential expression of that idea.
What the tradition is
The polychoral style that emerged from San Marco in the mid-16th century was a direct response to the building’s architecture. The basilica presented composers with opposing choir lofts separated by enough distance to make perfectly synchronized singing difficult before modern conducting techniques. Rather than treating that delay as a limitation, composers turned it into a structural feature.
They placed choirs in separate locations and wrote music that moved between them in alternation — voices calling and responding, sound arriving from different directions, the listener placed within a shifting acoustic field. The approach expanded what music could do in physical space.
The style reached a high point in the late 16th century with composers such as Giovanni Gabrieli, who developed dynamic contrasts and echo effects that would influence the emerging Baroque language. Monteverdi inherited that tradition in the early 17th century and refined it further, shaping works in which spatial placement is integral to the musical experience.
His Ave Regina, included in Friday’s program, reflects that approach: phrases move through space with the logic of architectural design, creating an experience that depends on the listener’s physical presence in the room.
The Church of the Little Flower
The Church of the Little Flower, at 2711 Indian Mound Trail, offers an environment well suited to this repertoire. Its nave provides sufficient depth for the separation of performers, allowing sound to travel and register as movement rather than simply direction.
For listeners accustomed to concerts in which the ensemble performs from a fixed stage, Surround Sound will present a different kind of experience. Performers will be positioned throughout the space. The audience will occupy the center. Sound will arrive from multiple points, echoing the conditions for which this music was originally written.
The weekend marks Quigley’s final performances as Seraphic Fire’s founder and artistic director. Friday’s concert in Coral Gables is the first of those.
SERAPHIC FIRE: SURROUND SOUND
What: Season-closing polychoral concert featuring choir and period instrument quartet
When: Friday, April 10, 8 p.m. (pre-concert conversation with Dr. James K. Bass one hour prior)
Where: Church of the Little Flower, 2711 Indian Mound Trail, Coral Gables
Program includes: Claudio Monteverdi, Ave Regina; Tomás Luis de Victoria, Agnus Dei from Missa Ave Regina Caelorum; Benjamin Britten, Hymn to the Virgin; and additional works.
