When spring flowers reappear ... that's when love strikes. Shakespeare wrote a lot about it. But those who wish to set his texts to music face a great challenge: How do you do justice to the qualities of this great master of literature in a contemporary way? John Rutter and George Shearing have both succeeded very well in doing just that. Rutter wrote his Birthday Madrigals - on texts by Shakespeare and contemporaries - for jazz pianist Shearing's 75th birthday, and Shearing answered that gift a few years later with his Songs and Sonnets from Shakespeare. This particular set sounds at times exuberant and jazzy and at other times romantic, ironic or hushed.

That even very old stories can still capture the imagination is proven by the Fables of Aesopus. Through energetic staccatos, the English composer Bob Chilcott shows Aesop's Fables come back to life.

Spring is the season of love, but also of light. And light was a major theme in this program by the Leiden Chamber Choir. In Lux Aeterna by Edward Elgar centered on eternal light. And in Sure on this Shining Night by American Morten Lauridsen, the men sang about a nocturnal longing for Elysium, the paradise from Greek mythology.

The Basque song Izar Ederrak by Josu Elberdin, who hails from northern Spain, tells of ‘the beautiful star. But perhaps the most extraordinary piece of the program was Stars by Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds, in which the choir members collectively played the accompanying glass organ on carefully tuned wine glasses while singing. The effect was breathtaking.