It’s said that good things come in threes. If so, it bodes well for composer Tim Keyes, whose new work, “The Pool,” completes a triptych of sacred oratorios inspired by episodes from the Gospel of John. With the work’s first performance at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium on Saturday, June 14, at 8 p.m., the group of musicians Keyes directs, the Tim Keyes’ Consort, will also celebrate three decades.
Keyes is a prolific composer who has written in all genres — oratorios, symphonies, concertos, film scores, chamber music, instrumental works, and choral pieces. With 23 years’ experience as pastoral assistant of music and liturgy at the Catholic Church of St. Charles Borromeo in Skillman, it’s little surprise that so much of his music would be on religious themes.
Many of his concertos and symphonies, however, have geographic, historical, or seasonal associations. Of course, anything he writes is personal. A Symphony in B-flat, “Elegy,” composed in memory of his father, was performed at Richardson last year.
Keyes’ new oratorio portrays the fallout from the miracle of Jesus’ healing of a man, blind from birth, at the pool of Siloam. “This healing dramatizes the meaning of being able to see, highlighting the fact that those who can see with their eyes many times are blind to the reality of the world around them,” Keyes says.
The work is scored for orchestra, chorus, and four vocal soloists. Tenor Justin Connors, mezzo-soprano Victoria Lotkowictz, baritone Gary Gavula, and bass Graig Corveleyn sing the principal roles.
The first part of the triptych, “The Well,” was given its premiere at Richardson in 2016. It relates the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. The second, “The Stone,” first performed in 2024, explores the raising of Lazarus from the dead.
The trilogy took Keyes 10 years to complete. He attributes the inspiration for these works to Lenten readings from the Gospel of John as part of the Catholic liturgy.
“The thing about all three of those readings is that they’re kind of synoptic, they’re kind of connected together, because each one of them sort of reflects Jesus as the water of life, the light of the world, and the resurrection,” he says.
In writing “The Well,” he was also influenced by his experience playing in pit bands in the 1990s for works such as Marty Haugen’s “Tales of Wonder.” These were conceived for performance in church but shared characteristics with musical theater. Keyes abandoned his first halting attempts to treat the subject, only to return to it for a fresh take 20 years later.
Keyes says “The Pool” was the most difficult of the three to write. “The story is very different. Jesus appears at the beginning. He puts mud on the guy’s eyes and says go wash [which restores his sight], and then He disappears. The entire dynamic of the story is between the blind man, essentially, and the community and the establishment. He’s a total innocent. It just kind of shows how somebody put in a position not of their own making can be ostracized by the entire community.
“At the end of the story, Jesus comes back. It’s very different structurally. It was very tricky to write. In terms of the mood of it, it’s a bit darker than the other two [because of the central conflict].”
The Tim Keyes Consort is made up of professional and amateur singers and instrumentalists from Central New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania. The group performs new works and sometimes less frequently heard choral and orchestral pieces from the standard repertoire.
Also central to its mission has been an educational component. Veteran instrumentalists are paired with younger talent, fostering a mentoring approach. It’s interesting to note, as the younger artists go on to pursue their studies elsewhere, teaching becomes one of their own objectives as musicians.
Saturday’s concert will open with a work by one of Keyes’ former composition and theory students, Amelia Cunningham, “Irish Overture.” Cunningham, who will serve as concertmaster of the orchestra this weekend, is currently majoring in violin performance and minoring in education at Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts.
Kathryn Dauer, another past Keyes pupil, will return to the Consort as its new assistant music director. Dauer left to study at Ithaca College and is now pursuing her master’s in music education at Rowan University. On Saturday, she will conduct Keyes’ “Adagio,” an orchestration of the second movement of an organ work, “Toccata, Adagio and Fugue,” written for Thomas DeLessio, director of liturgical music at Metuchen Cathedral, in 2020.
The first half the program will conclude with the “Suite for Flute and Orchestra,” composed by Keyes for the Consort’s principal flutist Paulette DiNardo.
Born in Baytown, Texas, Keyes exhibited his musical aptitude early. His father, who was a geologist in the employ of what is now Exxon, and his mother, were both supportive, and by high school he was studying theory and composition with David Carter of the Houston Symphony Orchestra.
He continued his education at the University of Notre Dame with composers Paul Johnson and Ethan Haimo and musicologist Calvin Bower. A scholarship enabled him to attend the Aspen Music Festival for further studies with Charles Jones, Bright Sheng, and Leonard Bernstein.
Moving to New York in 1986, Keyes found work at Warner Brothers, where he labored in the publication department, transcribing popular hits for sheet music sales. He also did production work for Epic and Geffen Records, among others.
He also held church music jobs almost since he graduated from Notre Dame. St. Charles Borromeo is about a 40-minute drive from North Plainfield, where he makes his home with designer Meg Poltorak Keyes. The couple has been married for 32 years.
“It’s hard for me to imagine that it’s been 30 years [since the founding of the Tim Keyes Consort],” Keyes says. “When I think about how we began and where we are now, it’s like a completely different universe. The organization has grown way beyond me at this point. I’m constantly encouraging the younger people, because those are the ones who will be taking over. I still hopefully have a few more years in me, but I’m constantly looking for the future.”
More information and performance videos may be found at the organization’s website, timkeyesconsort.org.
The Pool, Tim Keyes Consort, Richardson Auditorium, Princeton University. Saturday, June 14, 8 p.m. $25 general admission. 609-258-5000 or www.princeton.edu/richaud.
