For the spring season at Steinmetz Hall, Orlando Sings is poised to perform Handel’s “Messiah” Credit: Photo by Michael Cairns

Local choral group Orlando Sings, under the artistic direction of Dr. Andrew Minear, doesn’t shy away from thought-provoking material.

Composer Reena Esmail grew up in Los Angeles and is currently based there; she has said she “yearned for a way to process the rising panic” while witnessing the worsening California drought; her “Malhaar: A Requiem for Water” is the result. If a requiem is a mass for the dead, then titling a composition “A Requiem for Water” is a bit of a gut-punch, but in Hindustani music, a malhaar is a group of ragas calling for rain.

This concert weaves together Esmail’s malhaar/requiem with Gabriel Fauré’s gorgeous “Requiem, Op. 48” to create an opportunity for transcendence — exquisite sound, complicated truth.

8 p.m. Friday, May 3, First United Methodist Church Orlando.

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This article appears in May 1-7, 2024.

Jessica Bryce Young has been working with Orlando Weekly since 2003, serving as copy editor, dining editor and arts editor before becoming editor in chief in 2016.