Concert report: BBC Elijah

So, I just got back from the Back Bay Chorale's performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah.

It was quite exciting!

The chorus were the champs of the evening. They were extremely technically solid, and very expressive and intense. They really carried the entire piece. The weight of their accomplishment would seem to require more words, but I can't think of anything else to say other than "Well done." The orchestra was OK, although at the start of a couple of movements they were dragging behind the conductor, and took a few measures to find the tempo. The soloists were all exciting in their own way. The tenor, Yeghishe Manucharyan, was quite good. It's not exactly the biggest tenor showcase ever, but he has a lovely and lyrical voice. The alto, Gigi Mitchell-Velasco, was also quite good. In the first half she just sings the part of "Angel" and the writing is a bit bland, and I was not particularly wowed, but then in the second half she sings Jezebel, and that was GREAT. She really sunk her teeth into that bit. And her "Angel" aria in the second half, "O rest in the Lord" was just lovely.

There was DRAMA concerning the soprano. Apparently the original soprano had to back out last weekend or Tuesday or something (owing I am guessing to illness, but I am not sure.) So they found a soprano to take her place...who had to cancel last night due to laryngitis. So the soprano they finally found, Anne Harley, they found TODAY. You never would have known - she was excellent. And doing accompanied recitative on no rehearsal is not easy, either!

And the baritone. Richard Zeller. Mr. Zeller's bio says, "He is known for his beautiful dramatic voice and presence as well as his outstanding musicianship" which in my opinion pretty well covers it. However, he was responsible for giving everyone a near heart-attack in the first half. During one of Elijah's recitatives, he started a phrase "And --" and then abruptly cut off. Nobody knows what happened, but a friend sitting near the front of the stage says he seemed to choke a bit, so it may have been vocal (rather than brain freeze, which is the only other explanation I can think of.) There was a painful silence, with the conductor frozen, waiting (and that must have taken nerves of steel, I hope that doesn't happen to me on the podium) and then he went on. It was a painfully stressful moment - as soon as it happened every muscle in my body tensed and I was abruptly pushing hard against the back of the seat until he continued.

But my man Zeller recovered and more - he hit the rest of his performance out of the park. He was a splendid Elijah. His two arias in the second act in particular were really special. There are times during a performance when something touches you and you know that you are part of the audience, and you are all being touched together in the same way, and something really special is happening. And then there are times when the music touches you and you know it's personal, that only you are responding that way at that moment. Both types of moments are equally special in different ways. The first aria, "It is enough, O Lord" was an example of the first - it was the emotional high point of the performance. But the second, "Though the mountains shall depart," felt as if it reached out to me personally - it was just so lovely, and such a giving, gentle performance. I don't generally feel a great deal of affinity for Mendelssohn, but I could feel Zeller's performance of that aria physically chipping away at my opinion, and changing my Mendelssohn attitude permanently for the better.

All these bits and pieces I'm reporting don't really give the full impression of the evening. This was a huge piece. A Happening. An Event. And I stayed engaged through the whole two-hour-and-45-minute performance, which is Impressive. Part of that is the composition - for all its length, Elijah really is pretty tightly constructed and composed. But partly credit for that has to go to the conductor. Scott Jarrett established excellent pacing through the whole thing, he consistently maintained emotional intensity with his musicians, and his conducting was expressive and fluid and clear. He used a stick during the first half, and no stick during the second, which I found interesting; I think I preferred no stick, because his conducting seemed a bit more organic that way. I do really wish that he wouldn't mouth all the words (especially at his soloists!!!) But he did a fine job leading a large cast through a grand and exhausting evening of stellar music-making.

Have a drink, Mr. Jarrett (and pat yourself on the back for finding that soprano at the last minute) - you deserve it!

Weekend Concert Calendar, 5/29/08

Your choices for this weekend are not overwhelming in quantity, but delightful in quality!

Friday:

Top pick goes to the Back Bay Chorale's performance of Elijah, starring Richard Zeller, Elijah; Elizabeth Keusch, soprano; Gigi Mitchell-Velasco, mezzo-soprano; Yeghishe Manucharyan, tenor. There is a pre-concert lecture at 7:00 pm by Ann Howard Jones, director of choral activities at BU. The concert will be at Sanders Theatre at 8:00 pm. I'll be there - come say hello!

Also that evening the Boston Choral Ensemble presents Randall Thompson's Peaceable Kingdom and also the winner of their Annual Commission Competition. This will be at 8:00 pm at First Church in Cambridge. They will repeat this program on Sunday, June 1 at 2:00 pm at St. John the Evangelist in downtown Boston. I will note that the Friday concert is $20 a head, and the Sunday concert is free. (So if you go Sunday, be nice and make a donation!)

Saturday:

Tough choice tonight! At 8 pm at Symphony Hall you can hear the Boston Pops Gospel Night featuring Oleta Adams and the Boston Pops Gospel Choir. That looks pretty awesome to me.

But instead I will be going to hear Le Mystere de Voix Bulgares and very excited about it I am, too! They will be at the Church of the Covenant in downtown Boston at 8 pm. Here is their website. I have never heard them live, but the sound on their recordings is thrilling. You can listen to sound clips on their website. Damn, that sound just hits me like nothing else.

Sunday:

Chorus pro Musica (in concert - ha! - with Concert Opera Boston) will present Bizet's Carmen. Featuring Victoria Livengood as Carmen, Adam Klein as Don José, Robert Honeysucker (woohoo!) as Escamilllo, Nouné Karapetian as Micaela, and Philip Candilis as Zuniga. This will be at 3 pm at NEC's Jordan Hall, and will be sung in French with projected English translations.

At 8:00 pm the Zamir Chorale presents "Wild Peace," a celebration of works from Israel's greatest composers. Included will be the world premiere of Charles D. Osborne’s oratorio for chorus and orchestra, Like Wildflowers, Suddenly, inspired by the poem "Wild Peace," by Israeli poet Yehudah Amichai. This is at Sanders Theatre (a busy place this weekend!).

And if you wish, there is an open sing of the Brahms Requiem in Charlestown at 3 pm. It is at St. Mary - St. Catherine of Siena Parish and is hosted by Coro Polifonico of Boston (which I have to confess, I have never heard of before. They should join the GBCC!) Scores will be provided, but bring your own if you have one.

Cappella Clausura links, and tech experiments

I"m trying out cut-tags in blogger. Click below to read my full entry, and see some neat links to Cappella Clausura stuff! Edit: OK, that attempt at cut-tags was totally unsuccessful, but please enjoy the links anyways!

First of all, there is a radio interview with our director, Amelia LeClair. This happened before the concert we did in April in Connecticut at Sacred Heart University. It is a very good overview of what the group is about and what we sing.

And secondly, here is a slide-show of us at that concert! I am the first person to the left of the continuo group.

Messiah gone wrong

This link was sent to me by one of the two organists at my church. As she said, "I thought it might give you a chuckle or a knot in your stomach."

This is one of those situations where you can use statements like, "That was...amazing," or "That was unlike anything I've ever heard before!"

Weekend Concert Calendar, 5/23/08

Will this be one of the weeks I get my act together and actually post about the weekend concerts?

Yes! Ironically, there are no concerts to post about, since it is Memorial Day Weekend.

Well, that's not strictly true. I can find ONE.

On Sunday at 3 pm, the Cambridge Community Chorus will present their final concert directed by William E. Thomas. Selections wil include Haydn's "Harmony Mass" and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast." This will be at Sanders Theatre at Harvard University in Cambridge. Check out William Thomas's biography - he has been a champion of new music and under-performed works, and a particular expert on composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

Also, a heads-up for next week: on Wednesday the chapel choir of Thomas's Preparatory School in Kensington in the U.K. will give a lunchtime concert at 12:15 at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul. And it's free!

Next weekend, save Friday night for the Back Bay Chorale's performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah. And on Saturday, Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares (The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices) is in town! I am so there! Let me know if you want to join me - I'm going to buy my ticket this weekend!

Weekend Concert Calendar, 5/15/08

Well, I am falling down on the job again. This time my excuse is that I am getting a cab to the airport at 4:30 am (that's in 5.5 hours and I haven't packed yet) for my brother's graduation. Huzzah! And double-huzzah because he has a job, which he just got today! And he's getting married at the end of June. He's a busy guy.

Anyways, I will simply remind you that, back by popular demand, Michael Veloso's piece Executive Orders will be performed again by the Arlington-Belmont Chamber Chorus on Friday, May 16 at 8:00 pm at First Parish, Arlington.

I previously wrote about this piece here. Do go see it - it's a great piece of music! And then as a bonus, there's also some Hindemith on the program! Who could ask for more?

See you all on the flip side. Wish me a decent nap on the flight.

Mother's Day Choir

Yesterday my church choir and I had quite a moving experience.

One of the pieces we did for the service was Bobby McFerrin's "Psalm 23: Dedicated to my mother." I introduced it at rehearsal on Wednesday, and I sent them a Youtube link to a good performance online (I try to do this whenever possible.)

For those who don't know, this piece is set with a very free rhythm - he just writes a whole note, and then writes a long line of text under it that is supposed to be sung in speech rhythm. (My understanding is that Anglican chant is similar to this.) Difficult to conduct, to say the least. So we were going through it on Sunday morning in our rehearsal before the service. And it was clear that we were having lots of trouble singing it together - everyone was at different speeds. So I went through it, giving them the emphasized words, and telling them where to put breaks (I did this on Wednesday as well, so doing this on Sunday was a refresher.) And then I said, "OK. This is obviously not coming together with me conducting, so here's what we're going to do. I am not going to conduct. Not even with my head. I'm just going to listen. And Maureen (the accompanist) is just going to give you your notes, and she's not going to play. You all just have to breathe together and go, and sing the piece together. This is an experiment - just try it." And they did. And it WORKED. In fact, it was amazing. They were really together, in a way that would have been flat-out impossible if I had been conducting. They had to come together as a group, b/c they didn't have me in there gumming up the works.

So that was the way we did it in the service. When the choral benediction came along, I just sat down in the front pew, and Maureen gave them their notes, and they sang the whole piece by themselves with no conductor, and it was great, and I just listened. In fact, I made the mistake of listening too vulnerably, and by the last verse I had tears in my eyes and wasn't sure I was going to be able to keep from really crying. This happens sometimes to me as a conductor when I make what I will mis-call "the mistake of listening." Obviously one of your primary jobs is to listen...but when you are working hard at being open, you run the risk of not being able to hold yourself emotionally together. The other notable time this happened to me was in the dress rehearsal for my masters' conducting concert. My teacher DM came up behind me while I was conducting Brahms' "Waldesnacht", and talked me through opening up and connecting to the music, and he succeeded a little too well - it was all I could do not to break down sobbing and I seriously felt like it was an effort of will to keep my joints together - I physically felt like I might break apart. It is one of the scariest challenges as a conductor to figure out how to open up the channels to emotion, to connect to the music yourself and thereby enable other people, both performers and audience, to connect to the music, without totally losing it yourself.

But the fact that my choir's performance affected me so strongly was a clear indication of how well they succeeded at making some real music. And what better story for Mother's Day? I taught and prepared them - they had the notes, and they knew what words they were heading for and what the rhythm should be, and where all the breaks and breaths were. And after they learned it I tossed them off the cliff and they flew. I love my choir.

Weekend Concert Calendar, 5/8/08, Part Deux

OK, finishing up the list for this weekend! The additional entries are almost all on Saturday of course, because apparently this Saturday is CRAZY for choral music.

Saturday:

On Saturday at 2 pm at Fanueil Hall the BCO and the Boston Children's Chorus are putting on a concert of music by Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, Haydn, and African-American and Native American songs followed by an instrument petting zoo. It's sold out, though. Too bad for you.

Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm the Harvard Bach Society Orchestra and the Dunster House Opera Society will present a semi-staged performance of Copland's opera The Tender Land. The location will be The Memorial Church, Harvard Yard, Cambridge.

Also on Saturday at 8 pm the Assabet Valley Master Singers will present The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace by Karl Jenkins (2000 Commission in England) based on the 15thC French song "L'Homme Arme." Texts include Tennyson, Kipling, the Koran, Christian mass, & the Mahabharata. This performance will be with the Algonquin Regional HS Chorus, and will be held at the Algonquin Regional High School, Northboro, MA.

At 7:30 in Peabody a group called simply the "Choral Art Society" will present Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil (aka the Vespers.) This will be at St. Vasilios Church in Peabody.

And at 7:30 that same day in Scituate another group simply called the "Choral Art Society" will perform "Czeching Into Vienna: Music of Dvorak, Schubert, and Brahms." This will be at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Scituate.

Sunday:

Not strictly choral, but at 3 pm in Pickman Hall at Longy there will be a vocal chamber music concert by members of the Vocal Ensemble Class. Music for voices & piano, flute, harp, trumpet, and violin by Bach, Caplet, Cornelius, Dvorak, Handel, Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Spohr, and others. This one is free!

Weekend Concert Calendar, 5/8/08

Finally I am jumping back on the bandwagon, after two weeks of being most unhelpful to anyone who was looking for choral music! I'm glad to say that my flu is better, and the intense concert season is (for me) mostly passed, so let's see what we have going on this weekend, hm?

Self-plugs, as always, come first! Anthology is singing at First Parish Cohasset Friday evening at 7:30 pm. This is a full-length concert, and also a fund-raiser for First Parish's organ fund, so I encourage everyone to show up for a good cause!

Friday:

At 8 pm the Cantata Singers will be at NEC's Jordan Hall in downtown Boston. They will present: Kurt Weill: Symphony No. 2; Charles Fussell: High Bridge—A Choral Symphony After Poems of Hart Crane (First Boston performance.) Karyl Ryczek, soprano; Janna Baty, mezzo-soprano; William Hite, tenor; David Kravitz, bass.

At 7:30 pm Fretless Voices, Mudville Madrigal Singers, and Peking and the Mystics will join together for the 3rd Annual "Only A-cappella Night" at the Saint Andrews' Performing Arts Series. This will be at 79 Denton Road, Wellesley, MA.

Saturday:

The choruses are out in force tonight!

At 7 pm at the Pleasant Street Congregational Church 75 Pleasant Street, Arlington, MA, the deVaronistas will present "Selections from 20th Century Song Cycles." I quote from an e-mail from a friend: "Lorna Cooke deVaron is conducting her last concert with the deVaronistas on Saturday, May 10, in a splendid and characteristic program." For those who don't know, Lorna Cooke deVaron was at NEC for over 40 years as director of their choral program, and directed the Longy Chamber Singers for many years after that. A biography is here. (Also, if you follow the link to the deVaronistas, you will find a fascinating press release. It is not current - it is for December 2006 - but it is instructive all the same.)

Convivium Musicum (a very good local amateur Renaissance choir - I recommend them) will give a concert on Saturday at 8 pm at First Church in Cambridge, Congregational in Cambridge. The concert description reads, "Two weddings and a treaty: Renaissance occasional music. Convivium Musicum offers a concert of Renaissance music penned for occasions and personalities: popes and kings, treaties and dedications, weddings and funerals, patrons and fellow composers."

The Brookline Community Chorus has a very neat programme at 8 pm at First Baptist Church , 848 Beacon St. Newton Centre (Green line accessible!) I quote from their release: "Duke Ellington's Sacred Concert, Chosen from three substantial collections of music Ellington called “sacred concerts” this program highlights inspired music that the jazz great considered to be the most important of his works. Classic 1940s dance band music alternates with introspective blues and full-throttle gospel. Instrumental and vocal virtuosity shares the spotlight with supple, graceful choral and ensemble writing."

The Concord Chorus will be at Cary Memorial Hall, 1605 Massachusetts Avenue, Lexington at 8 pm, presenting various works by Bach, Brahms, and Mozart.

The Master Singers will be right across the road, also at 8 pm in Lexington, at First Parish Church on the Battle Green presenting works by J.S. Bach and Schubert, including Schubert's Mass in G.

The Paul Madore Chorale will be up in Salem at 8 pm, presenting Anton Dvorak's Te Deum with Trudy Hill, Soprano and Donald Wilkinson, Baritone. Dave Brubeck's To Hope - a Celebration (a Boston-area premiere.) Their location is St. Anne's Church, 290 Jefferson Ave., Salem.

The Snug Harbor Community Chorus will be performing at 8 pm at The Duxbury Performing Arts Center, 73 Alden St, Duxbury, MA. "The Music, the Magic, and the Memories: a Tenth Anniversary celebration featuring mixed genre selections that capture the evolution and essence of the chorus."

Sunday (Mother's Day!):

At 3 pm the Masterworks Chorale will present an all Vaughan Williams program at Sanders Theater on the Harvard campus in Cambridge. And they advertise that "All women in attendance receive a red carnation!"

And for all of you G&S fans out there, this is the last weekend you can go see Ruddigore at MIT! Shows are tonight (Thursday) and Friday at 8 pm and Saturday at 2 pm. Location is La Sala de Puerto Rico, on the 2nd floor of the MIT Student Center.

I haven't even finished listing everything yet, but it is late and I have to get up early, so I am going to have to sign off and give you an addendum tomorrow!

Weekend Concert Calendar - NOT AGAIN!

Sorry to be unhelpful two weeks in a row, but I am sunk down lo with the flu, and need to sleep rather than do a choral roundup. (I am in fact so sick that I didn't go to the Boston Cecilia's awesome new music concert tonight, so you know things must be pretty bad.)

However, tomorrow night is a VERY IMPORTANT CONCERT, so please come! (And if you didn't get this in e-mail form, head over to Anthology's website and sign up to be on our mailing list!)

Dear Friends,

Anthology would like to invite you to a couple of our upcoming concerts! These will be our first full-length concerts together, and we're all very excited.

On Saturday, May 3, at 8:00 pm, we will be performing at First Parish Cambridge (www.firstparishcambridge.org). The church is in Harvard Square at 3 Church St. This is our first full-length concert, and we have quite a variety of music in store. We are singing all varieties of classical music, from madrigals and Renaissance motets, through Brahms and Bartok, and including several pieces written within the past couple of years by New England composers Michael Veloso and Eva Kendrick. We'll also be performing some folk music, a little barbershop, and some Sweet Honey in the Rock as well. We will be asking for a $15 donation at the door, but if you can't afford that, we want you to come anyways - that's why it's called a donation. We hope you can make it!

On Wednesday, May 7, at 5:30 pm, we will be performing at the Church of St. John the Evangelist at 35 Bowdoin St. in Boston (drupal.stjev.org). This is a "commuter concert" so it may be hard to get there if you do not work in Boston, but it is extremely close to a number of subway stops. There will be a donation plate at the door. Please let all your friends who work in Boston know about it! This concert will be about 45 minutes long, and we will be focusing mainly on our classical rep.

On Friday, May 9, at 7:30 pm, we will be performing at First Parish Cohasset (www.firstparishcohasset.org) in Cohasset on the South Shore. This will be a repeat of the program we are offering on May 3, so if you are unable to make the May 3 concert, we hope you will consider making the trek out to Cohasset to hear us! We will again be asking for a $15 donation, and half the proceeds of this concert will go towards the First Parish Organ Renovation Fund.

We hope to see you all in the audience sometime soon!

All the best,
Vicky, Anney, Michelle, and Allegra

Anthology
www.anthologyvoices.com

P.S. If you would like us to remove you from this e-mailing list, please just reply to this e-mail and let us know.

Sweet Home Alabama

One possible definition of globalization (or crossover? or collaboration?) could be a Finnish rock and roll band called the Leningrad Cowboys joining forces with the Soviet Red Army Choir to perform Sweet Home Alabama. Hypothetically, of course.

I have never seen a choir where everyone had head mics before.

Responsibility for sending me this link lies with my brother.

Cat Plays (with) Theremin

My readers, I apologize. I have been falling down on the job. Yes, it is true! I have strayed from the true purpose of the internet, which, as everyone knows, is:

Cute videos of cats!

In this case, a video of a cat playing a theremin. (For those who are not familiar with this instrument, it's an electronic instrument, notable for the fact that you don't touch it - you control the pitch and volume by moving your hands in the air near two antennae. If you would like to see one played correctly, check out Masami Takeuchi on YouTube playing Saint-Saens' The Swan on a theremin.)

And now...cute cat plays with a theremin! Via Mike Veloso.

How Does the Voice Work?

For anyone who's interested in what is actually happening when you sing, the Cambridge Center for Adult Education has an upcoming class called "How does the Voice Work?" To register, visit their website or call (617) 547-6789, ext. 1.

How Does the Voice Work?
Exactly what happens when we sing? Diana Cole and Carolyn Kingston are master teachers and singers who will lead us on an adventure down our throats. This spring we will review a fiber optic videotape of actual vocal folds vibrating, and present a second video identifying how sound is tuned and modulated in the vocal cavities (which determines vowels and voice quality). Based on what we see, we will discuss and experience our own voices. This presentation is a must for all singers, speakers, and curious human beings. Limited to 20.
COURSE CODE: HVOC
Sec. 01: 1 Wednesday, 5:45-7:45 pm. May 7, 56 Brattle St.| $38

That's in one week - looks good! (I know that as of a few days ago, they still had space.)

Weekend Concert Calendar...NOT

Sorry all. I'm going out of town tomorrow, and am a little swamped with preparations. Go to the Blue Heron concert, check out Die Fledermaus at Longy, and I'll see you all next week!

Weekend Concert Calendar, 4/17/08

First of all, I'm going to mention that I haven't quite gotten a good system down for putting together these weekly reports. Right now I go out and systematically search about 4 major sites that list concerts...but I frequently neglect to check my own inbox for announcements that are sent to me.

So, for example, I know that I neglected to mention the Psalm Enchanted Evening, co-sponsored by B'nai Or of Boston and Andover Newton Theological School on 4/5, or the performance on 4/10 of the Boston Gay Men's Chorus that the Scituate Friends of Music hosted. Have patience with me - I'll get this all sorted out eventually, and you will have an even more thorough weekend concert report than you do now! But it's been a busy month - I've been in a performance every weekend since Easter - so you might have to wait until summer for me to get my act together.

Speaking of performing, please do come and hear me sing with Cappella Clausura this weekend. We will be singing on Friday at 7:30 pm at Gordon Chapel in Old South in Copley Square, and on Saturday at 8 pm at Parish of the Messiah in Newton. We will be performing the Vespers of Cozzolani, and I am going to be singing LOW. As in, lots of low E's and D's, and that's in early music tuning (meaning lower than normal tuning.) The first time I sang the one little solo lick I have, the entire chorus burst out laughing. I pretended to be miffed until they assured me that it was the laughter of "Thank God that's not my line!" and "I can't believe she just did that!" Please don't let my freak-show low-singing-talents go to waste - join the audience, and say hello afterwards!

What else is up for this glorious spring weekend? First of all, congrats to the Braintree Choral Society, who are going on a tour to England. Have fun and travel safe, y'all!

Friday:

The BSO will present a program including Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. Anne Sofie von Otter is the mezzo soloist! And Ben Heppner will be filling in for Johan Botha, who is ill. Also on the program is John Harbison’s Symphony No. 5, featuring mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey and baritone Nathan Gunn.

At noon on Friday, the Bach Children's Chorus of Rochester, NY will perform a concert at Old North in Boston. There will be works by Mendelssohn, and traditional American songs.

Saturday:

I can't find evidence of this on their own website, but according to the New England Early Music Calendar, the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum Chamber Singers are going to perform Franco-Flemish Renaissance works at 3 pm at First Church Congregational in Cambridge. So if that sounds exciting, you might want to stroll over and check it out.

However, for the evening, it would seem you have NO OTHER OPTIONS other than to come see Cappella Clausura!

Sunday:

At 3:00 pm at Jordan Hall (New England Conservatory, Boston) the Dedham Choral Society will join with the Handel & Haydn children's chorus to present the New England premiere of Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man - A Mass for Peace, and the accompanying film. More info here.

Also at 3:00 pm, at First Church in Cambridge, the Cambridge Concentus presents a solo-voice performance of J.S. Bach's Cantata 43 with period instruments. Performers include: Ulrike Präger, soprano; Thea Lobo, mezzo-soprano; Jason Wang, tenor; Kyle Ferrill, baritone. Champagne served afterwards! (I only know Thea Lobo, but I LOVE her voice, and I highly recommend going to hear her!)

At 4:00 pm at the Harvard Memorial Church, the Harvard University Choir will be joined by the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music and a quartet of professional soloists to present the Harvard premiere of Robert D. Levin's recent completion of Mozart's Mass in C Minor. The concert will begin with a brief introduction by Robert Levin. To purchase online go to www.fas.harvard.edu/tickets. Ticket sales at the door are cash-only.

And the fun doesn't stop with the weekend! Two events not to miss next week:

Monday:

At 8:00 pm at Jordan Hall, the New England Conservatory Choruses and Sinfonietta will present Poulenc's Gloria, Duruflé's Requiem, and Pärt's Magnificat.

Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday:

The BSO presents Belioz' The Trojans, Part I. Soloists: Marcello Giordani, tenor (Aeneas); Yvonne Naef, m4ezzo-soprano (Cassandra); Dwayne Croft, baritone (Chorebus); Clayton Brainerd, bass-baritone (Pantheus); Kate Lindsey, mezzo-soprano (Ascanius); Jane Bunnell, mezzo-soprano (Hecuba); Ronald Naldi, tenor (Helenus); Eric Owens, bass (ghost of Hector). I'll be honest and admit I don't know who any of those people are, but perhaps some of you will be excited by some of the names!

Gig report: King's Chapel Choir

Last Sunday evening I sang in a concert with King's Chapel Choir. The program was:

Aaron Copland: In The Beginning
Samuel Barber: Agnus Dei (Adagio for Strings)
Daniel Pinkham: The Creation of the World
Leonard Bernstein: Chichester Psalms

Obviously I don't sing with the King's Chapel Choir regularly, since I'm at First Parish Cohasset on Sunday mornings, but I'm lucky enough that HC, the music director at King's Chapel, has asked me to join them for a couple of concerts in their concert series this year to expand their alto section.

This is kind of the perfect gig. There were only 3 rehearsals for this concert, including the dress rehearsal. (This is key - a fun gig that doesn't eat your life!) The repertoire is interesting and challenging. The choir is a friendly bunch of people as well as high-level musicians, and rehearsals strike that great balance between intensely focused and kind of hilarious because people are making puns and jokes under their breath. And a lot of the attitude is due to HC, who really keeps things efficiently moving in rehearsal with a sort of dry wit. He also has faith that people will go home and look at their music, so he never wastes too much time drilling anything. Of course, he is also lucky enough to have a choir that DOES go home and look at their music. Of course, that's probably because he invites people to join the choir who are responsible as well as talented...it's like the greenhouse effect, except awesome.

Even so, I have to confess that I was a little nervous after the dress rehearsal on Saturday, when I did not feel at all secure in a good many sections of the music, and I didn't seem to be the only one. But hey presto, the warm-up Sunday was far more solid, and the performance went great. And finally I have to say that the mezzo soloist on the Copland, Heather Holland, was AWESOME.

How did I land this great gig? Pretty simple - I e-mailed HC last fall, asked to sing for him, we scheduled a time to do so, I went in, sang for him, competently sight-read everything he put in front of me, he kindly put me on the sub list, and then I waited. That's the way it works, folks! In case you were wondering, which I certainly was 2 years ago.

Time's Top 25 Blogs

I'm a little late to this party, but if you haven't yet, go check out Time.com's First Annual Blog Index. "From millions of blogs about nothing, we've selected the 25 best about something."

Standing among giants - DailyKos, Lifehacker, BoingBoing - is a blog by Rachel Barenblat, someone I'm proud to call my friend. Her blog - called Velveteen Rabbi, with the tagline "When can I run and play with the real rabbis?" - is about Judaism and faith and poetry and other things, too. She's a poet as well as a rabbinic student, and her blog is beautifully written. I recommend checking it out...and isn't it exciting that Time.com does too?

Weekend Concert Calendar, 4/10/08

Spring! It is finally here! You can throw off the shackles of heavy overcoats and boots! And you will actually want to go out this weekend, instead of staying nestled on your warm couch while the cold winds howl. So, what should you do this weekend?

Well, first off, of course you should come see ME sing. I'm joining the King's Chapel Choir for a concert on Sunday at 5 pm at (where else?) King's Chapel.

The program is called "Made in America: Choral Masterpieces" and will consist of:
Leonard Bernstein: Chichester Psalms
Aaron Copland: In The Beginning
Samuel Barber: Agnus Dei (Adagio for Strings)
Daniel Pinkham: The Creation of the World

Details: King's Chapel is located at the corner of Tremont and School Streets, one block from the Park Street T. Suggested donation is $12/$8, there are no advance ticket sales, and the doors open at 4:30. Validated concert parking is available for $7 at the One Beacon Street Garage.

I'm actually practicing hard for this one, and also, the mezzo soloist on the Copland is fabulous, as is the entire choir generally, so please do come! These are all pieces that any choral musician should be familiar with.

Other options? As usual, you are spoiled for choice.

First off, this weekend is "Singing at Tufts!" weekend. On Friday at 8 pm, the Tufts Third Day Gospel Choir will perform; on Saturday at 7 pm, Tufts will present the inaugural "Boston Area Young Men's Choral Festival" (actually this is an all-day event, with the evening performance at 7); and on Sunday at 3 pm, the Tufts Chamber Singers present English and American choral music. More information on all these fine events is here.

Friday:

On Friday, the Boston Secession presents "Justina Golden and The Amiable Consort." (I believe this means that the Secession themselves are not singing, although some of their members also sing with The Amiable Consort. Please correct me if you have further details.) They specialize in Hildegard von Bingen and solo and multi-part chant, so if that is your bag, baby, I suspect you won't want to miss this. 8pm on Friday, Gordon Chapel at Old South. More details are here.

Also, the Boston Camerata is having a concert at 8 pm at First Church in Cambridge, but I really can't figure out from their website whether or not it involves choral music. See what you think. (Scroll down to "Alla Turca.")

Saturday:

Usually I have an idea of what big events are coming up. But this one almost completely slipped by me. Emmanuel Music is performing Bach's B minor mass on Saturday at 8 pm! At Emmanuel Church in Boston, of course. This should be AWESOME - someone must go and report back to me! And frankly, their publicity department should be ashamed of themselves. No postings on the Boston Singer's Resource? No postings on the Greater Boston Choral Consortium website? And why am I not on your press release e-mail list? Shame! (That last one is sort of a joke - only Concora (see below) has been savvy enough to add me to their press release e-mail list.)

At 8 pm, the Chorale and Women's Chorus of the Boston Conservatory will perform works by Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Handel. The concert will be at the Mary Baker Eddy Library, Hall of Ideas, and it's FREE! Directions are here.

On Saturday at 4 pm, there will be a celebration of the music of Irving Fine at Slosberg Hall at Brandeis. This looks very, very neat. More details at this website.

If you are down south, or out near/on the Cape, head over to Plymouth - Church of the Pilgrimage, Town Square (Leyden & Main Streets). The Pilgrim Festival Chorus will present a Spring concert, featuring Ralph Vaughan Williams Dona Nobis Pacem and Five Mystical Songs. This one is at 7:30, so don't be late! More info here. They will repeat this concert at 3 pm on Sunday at the same location.

Sunday:

You already know where you should be on Sunday at 5 pm - at King's Chapel, of course, as mentioned above.

However, there is some stiff competition for that time slot - The Oriana Consort will be performing at 5:30 pm at First Lutheran Church in Boston (Berkeley and Marlborough Streets.) This is the same concert program as last weekend, featuring motets by Palestrina, Andrea Gabrieli, Giovanni Gabrieli, and Claudio Monteverdi; J. S. Bach's cantata "Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich" (BWV 150); Randall Thompson's "Ye shall have a song"; Irving Fine's "Have you seen the white lily grow?" and more.

If you want to do some singing yourself, head on over to the Belmont Open Sings, and sing the Mozart Coronation Mass (which has perhaps my favorite Credo movement that I have yet run into.) 7:30 at the Payson Park Church, 365 Belmont Street, Belmont - and they even provide the scores! More information is here.

If you feel like tootling down to Connecticut (or if you are already there) the Concora women's chorus will be performing Rachmaninoff's Vespers. This will be at 7:30 at the Church of St. Thomas the Apostle, West Hartford, CT. More information is on their website; more information about the accompanying historical lecture and open rehearsal is here.

Also on Sunday: The Pilgrim Festival Chorus will repeat their Saturday program (see above).

The non-choral pick of the week is a concert performance of the musical Chess at the Boston Conservatory. It's on Friday at 8, Saturday at 2 and 8, and Sunday at 2. It's a great score, and I am willing to bet you'll hear some fabulous voices, so check it out!

AMC Mountains and Music - Come with me!

Wouldn't you just love to go on vacation? Just for a weekend? The last weekend in April sounds good, doesn't it? Perhaps somewhere that has hiking, maybe a climbing wall? Oh, and some canoeing? And let's not forget the opportunity to make some music, both in a large chorus or orchestra and also in small pick-up chamber groups? You could bring that quartet you can never get anyone to try with you, and assemble a group to play it before lacing up your hiking boots.

Well, you're in luck! The Appalachian Mountain Club's Boston Chapter hosts a Mountains and Music weekend three times a year. The next weekend will be April 28-30, and yours truly will be the chorus director! (If you are a long-time reader, you may remember that I have done this before, and had a great time.) We need more people in the choir - we have no basses and few tenors right now, so we've actually decided go to with the Pergolesi Stabat Mater as the joint choral/orchestral piece. And if you are a stellar alto, you might get to do the alto solos (I already have a stellar soprano soloist - sorry, soprani!)

You can find more information and also a registration form here. The registration deadline is this Friday. Please sign up - it would be great to see some more friendly faces there!

Gig report: Anthology at the Harmony Sweepstakes

Last Saturday Anthology competed in the Boston Regional Harmony Sweepstakes. This was a bit of a stretch for us - after all, our core is currently classical, though we're playing around in a lot of directions, and this event is very firmly planted in a cappella/barbershop land. It was a good experience, though, and we did very well, especially considering we learned one of the songs in less than a week and we were operating outside our comfort zone. There were eight groups competing, and Syncopation won, which was totally and utterly correct - they were fantastic. But the people who really knocked our socks off were the barbershop group Men in Black, who won last year and hosted this year. Holy cow - the tuning! The stage presence and charm! The tight-harmony arrangements! Go check them out if they are in your area.

We performed Benedictus by Brahms, I Am Stretched On Your Grave arr. The Voice Squad, and I Am a Can of Tuna, by the Chenille Sisters. We felt that set represented our current range pretty well. That last one we first looked at the music for six days before Saturday - that is, a week ago today. And we memorized it. And I sang a walking bass line - new experience! - into a hand-held mic - new experience! well, except for karaoke - and it all went quite fine.

We got judging sheets, too. Some of the helpful criticisms covered vowel shaping, blending, use of vibrato, tuning, mic balance (though that's not exactly our fault) and visual presentation. I will share with you a few of the positive comments, including, of course, some of the ones that mentioned me.

"bold choice to start" - that was the Brahms
"beautiful sound"
"woman on (my right) - watch posture" - Yes, that would be me.
"Great bass line in Tuna" - Woohoo! That would be me, too, on my first bass line performance!
"Nice opening -- Allegra! fearless approach!" - That one is, of course, my favorite comment, coming from the judge that I already knew from somewhere else.
"Excellent diction - clear consonants - crisp"
"You present a poised and professional appearance!"

All in all, I thought it was a great learning experience, and also just plain fun, for all of us.

Weekend Concert Calendar, 4/3/08

Oof, I'm getting started pretty late tonight on this! Let's see if I achieve the dual purpose of letting you know what choral concerts are out there this weekend so that you can go enjoy some music and also getting some sleep.

First of all, Anthology is in the Boston Regional Harmony Sweepstakes this Saturday! 7:30 pm at the Cohen Auditorium at Tufts! Please go - it would be great to have some supporters, since this is a big deal, and I'm kind of nervous. (I have to do choreography. I'm not sure this is a good idea.) And if we win, we get to go compete in the nationals in San Francisco! And since part of our score is determined by how well we entertain the audience, you should show up and be massively, publicly and loudly entertained by us!

In other news, there are some other concerts that don't revolve around me. Like anything without me in it matters. But here they are anyways:

Friday:

Pick of the weekend (whatever day you can get there) is the Schola Cantorum under the direction of Fred Jodry. Friday and Saturday at 8 pm; Sunday at 4 pm. Heck, I'll just copy from their website:
J. S. Bach: Cantata 76 - Die Himmel Erzahlen
Motet: Komm, Jesu, Komm
Harpsichord Concerto in D Minor
With Musica Maris Baroque Orchestra
Michael Bahmann, Director
Fri Apr 4 at 8 PM: Saint John's, 35 Bowdoin Street, Boston. MA 02114
Sat Apr 5 at 8 PM: First Unitarian Church, 1 Benevolent Street, Providence, RI 02906
Sun Apr 6 at 4 PM: Congregational Church, 1 The Commons, Little Compton, RI 02837

Handel and Haydn is doing Haydn's Harmoniemesse and some other stuff by Haydn that is not choral on Friday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm at Symphony Hall. A great group doing the core of their repertoire!

The Mastersingers by the Sea are performing Haydn's Creation Friday and Saturday at 8 and Sunday at 3 in Marion and Falmouth, MA - more info at their website.


Saturday:

At 3 pm the Master Singers will perform their FREE 11th annual Children's Concert along with Clarke Middle School chorus of Lexington. Performance is at Clarke Middle School - more information is here.

The Boston Gay Men's Chorus is performing at 8:30 at Symphony Hall. This sounds like a pretty cool program - "A kaleidoscopic evening of music that celebrates the great American traditions of civil liberty and freedom of expression. The program includes songs by George Michael, music inspired by Tales of the City and the premire of Liebermann’s A Whitman Oratorio." Obviously you will be at the Harmony Sweepstakes...but aren't you sad to miss this? I am.

Also, The Harvard Holden Chamber Ensembles (Michael Barrett, dir) present Music of the Spheres: An Exploration of Mathematics in Music. Vocal works by Machaut, Ockeghem & later composers. Memorial Church, Harvard Yard. Cambridge, 8pm, FREE. Does that look cool or what? Too bad that you will ALSO miss this concert due to being at the Tufts Harmony Sweepstakes. Life is just harsh sometimes.

And hey, Berkshire people, I have one for you! The Crescendo Choir will perform polychoral works by Willaert, Andrea & Giovanni Gabrieli, Claudio Monteverdi & Heinrich Schütz at the First Congregational Church, 251 Main St, Great Barrington. This one starts at 7:30 pm. And yet, since this concert is ALSO at the same time as the Tufts Harmony Sweepstakes, how ironic that there will be a glorious concert in your neck of the woods at the very same time when you will have gotten in your car and traveled 3 hours east to see the Harmony Sweepstakes and cheer on Anthology! Right? Right. But fear not, they will repeat this concert on Sunday at 4 pm at Trinity Church, 484 Lime Rock Rd, Lakeville CT, so you can go see that one.

Also on Saturday at 7:30 pm in MIT's Kresge Auditorium, the MIT Chinese Choral Society together with Chorus Boston and GBCCA present Faure's Requiem. More info here.

Sunday:

If you are in Bedford, there's a Schubert marathon going on.

The Oriana Consort will perform at the Swedenborg Chapel in Cambridge at 5:30 pm. Their concert is titled "“Baroque Legacies: Innovations in choral music of the Baroque era—and their echoes in choral music of the 20th century.” Which to me translates as, "This is a whole bunch of really cool music that we tried to come up with some concept for so that more people would come to hear it." No offense to them - it's a time-honored tradition, I do it myself all the time - and any concert that programs Irving Fine makes me immediately want to attend. Also, I know one of their altos, and she has the most gorgeous voice ever, so if she is representative of the group, this will be a beautiful-sounding concert.

Cantata Singers! Woohoo! One of those groups that I have never heard sing due to scheduling problems, and yet still have huge respect for - ah, the power of a good reputation. They continue their year-long exploration of Weill at 3 pm at the Leventhal-Sidman Jewish Community Center, 333 Nahanton Street, Newton Center. It's actually a cabaret concert, not a choral concert, but it looks like fun.

The Northeastern University Choral Society presents a concert of American Masterpieces at 7:30 pm at the Fenway Center in Boston (directions on their website.) "The featured works are Randall Thompson’s evocative Frostiana, two romantic works: Daniel Pinkham’s Wedding Cantataand Eric Whitacre’s Five Hebrew Love Songs, Irving Fine’s humorous Three Choruses from Alice in Wonderland, and Norman Dello Joio’s exuberant Song of the Open Road." Good stuff, that!

Also this weekend, the Harvard-Radcliffe G&S Players are doing Patience! This weekend and next weekend - go check it out! Verily, they invariably put on a good show.

And on Monday, the BU Symphony Orchestra and Symphonic Chorus are performing Verdi's Requiem under the baton of Ann Howard-Jones at Symphony Hall at 8 pm.

Whew! If I stayed up late to type this up, it is the LEAST you can do, thou herd of ingrates, to get out there and listen to some music this weekend! Get thee forth and use thine ears! Also, can someone proofread this for me? I'm going to hit the sack!

Gig report: Clausura in CT

So yesterday Cappella Clausura went down to Sacred Heart University in CT. We did a masterclass there (with their Catholic Music class, I believe) and then performed in the evening. I got home at 1 am.

The masterclass went well - many of the students were relatively well engaged (some were texting or surfing the web on their laptops, but so it goes.) We did get some questions, although I was hoping the theorbo would have gotten more shock value. I mean, come on, it's a theorbo, and I know most of them had never seen one before! And yet nobody said "What the hell is THAT?!?" the way I was hoping they would. The funniest moment probably came when Amy (the director) had us demonstrate a drone, which we use in some of the chant we do - half the group just sings a single note on a single vowel while staggering our breaths so the sound never stops. It is probably the most brutally hard thing I have to sing in with that group - definitely the most difficult aspect of this particular program. It's hard to explain properly if you haven't experienced it, but sitting on one note can rapidly make your throat and entire body get very, very tense, and having it be on one vowel, so nothing is physically changing, makes it that much harder. (Mike, it's basically the equivalent of playing Reich's Piano Phase.)

Anyways, we stood in a circle, and all droned together, and then Amy invited students to come up and stand in the middle of the circle to hear a surround-sound version of droning. So a few did, and duly expressed the opinion that it was cool, and then with the third kid Amy moved into the circle and sang a half-step down against us. The guy in the middle, who looked like an affable jock, immediately freaked out, and said, "Stop, stop! That's too weird!" and backed out of the circle. It's not often you get such a violent reaction to dissonance. :)

Then after some down time during which we all felt aimless, we went to a little reception in the university art gallery, with some very good food. (Little coconut-crusted lobster rolls on a stick, yum! Also, half a glass of wine before a concert has no deleterious effects - note to self!) Then we sang the concert, which went well - it's a program we've sung a number of times before, so it was quite comfortable and familiar. We had a pretty good crowd - it was in the university auditorium. And afterwards they fed us a very nice dinner. Nothing warms my heart towards an institution like good food - the way to a singer's heart is through their belly!

The drive home was quite exciting - massive rainstorm, big thunder, heavy wind. Luckily I wasn't driving, and mostly dozed through the whole thing. And that was my day yesterday.

On Envy

Something I have been wanting to do for a while on this blog is to make more substantive posts about my thoughts and feelings about music and conducting. The Weekend Concert Calendar updates have gotten me blogging more regularly, so that's good, but I am going to try to start blogging regularly about other things too, that might give insight into that most revered object, The Musician's Braaaaaiiins.

Today's post is on envy.

Namely, I haz it.

If someone says to me, "Oh, I know this conductor, they're about your age, blah, blah, blah, you should meet them," my immediate response is pretty much "No I shouldn't! I hate them already!"

I am just massively jealous of all other conductors in my peer group. I am jealous that they get gigs that I didn't, that they have training that I didn't, that they have ears that I don't, that they are cuter, that they are nerdier, that they are more charismatic, have better stick technique, get gigs in spite of the fact that they have worse stick technique, that they have more contacts, that they have cool mentors, that they have piano skills, that they can tap-dance, you name it. Obviously this all comes from the fact that I don't have the career I want right now - I want to be conducting and music-making full-time - and I am still quite insecure in my abilities. And of course, once I meet one of these other conductors in person, I often find them good to talk to, and easy to connect with, and both charming and skilled (JR of OperaHub comes to mind.)

It should be noted that age is the key envy trigger. Older conductors or people with respected careers never generate these feelings. It's only the people I feel threatened by, people who are my direct competitors. Also, they need to be fairly formless - my friends who are conductors also don't generate this knee-jerk response. (I will not deny that there is the occasional conductor my age that I do know personally, and just don't particularly get on with - those I remain envious of!)

So, if you say to me, "Oh, I just LOVE so-and-so," don't be surprised if my response is lukewarm. Inside, I am saying, "But, but, I can do that, too!" I may also merely grunt if you say, "Oh, you should meet so-and-so! They're a conductor, too!"

(I should note that this is not the same as saying, "Oh, you should meet so-and-so, because they're gay/Asian/freckled/have a Wainwright bank account just like you and you'll love them!" In those situations, it is insulting and thoughtless to assume that people with like characteristics will automatically click. However, it IS perfectly reasonable to assume that I might want to network with other conductors. It is, in fact, a good idea for me to do so. So I encourage you to keep plugging in the face of any arched eyebrows you may get.)

Usually this envy manifests in a sort of flame-like spurt at the mention of another conductor, which is immediately tamped down so that I can function like a mature and compassionate human being. And sadly for the purposes of story-telling, I don't have any huge feuds with anyone, and this has never led to the least bit of drama. But I do think it's valuable to share that hey, these ugly feelings are there. In a profession that is so competitive (and here I mean the music business in general) I suspect that lots of musicians are envious of each other's success. I'm here to tell you that it's OK. You can be envious, squash it down, and then move on to be supportive of each other. It's not having negative feelings, it's how you act on them (or refrain from acting/speaking/snarking) that counts. I mention this because I suspect at least one reader's response to this post will be "Well, you shouldn't feel that way!" Maybe I shouldn't. But that is a far cry from doesn't.

As always, there is a lolcat for everything. My feelings towards other conductors can pretty much be summed up thus:

Weekend Concert Calendar, 3/27/08

First and foremost, the most exciting thing this weekend is that this Saturday (the last Saturday of Women's History Month) is SWAN Day, Support Women Artists Now Day. There will be arts festivals held all over the world, including one in Rhode Island, where Anthology will be singing! For more information about SWAN Day in general, check out the SWAN Day website (with an awesome video of Sandra Oh!!) For more information about the event in Providence, please check out the Providence MySpace page about the event. It will be at the Artists’ Exchange in Cranston, RI, and Anthology takes the stage at 2:30 pm.

Finding rehearsal time has been a bear recently for Anthology, partly because of Holy Week, and partly because we all have lives. Lucky we're all such top-notch musicians! ;)

So, if you decide not to mosey down to RI this weekend, what else is going on?

Friday:

I can find no choral performances in MA this Friday. This can't be right - help me out! Anybody know of anything going on?

Saturday:

The concert I will be most sad to miss this weekend (due to being down in RI) is Musica Sacra's concert entitled "Vox Populi: Choral Works from Folk Music of the World." 8:00 pm at First Church Congregational, 11 Garden Street, Cambridge. More information is at their website.

Also on Saturday, the Spectrum Singers perform a concert titled "An American Sampler." The highlight will be Copland's In the Beginning featuring mezzo-soprano Krista River (a singer that Boston Cecilia fans will be familiar with.) 8:00 pm, Emmanuel Church, 15 Newbury St. - more info at their website.

On Saturday at 8 pm, and again on Sunday at 2 pm, Operatunity is presenting The Magic Flute down at the Orpheum Theater in Foxboro. I know a couple of good voices in the cast - worth the trip!

And if you are looking for some gospel, you can check out the
Rev. Jeffrey L. Brown 20th Pastoral Anniversary Concert at the Union Baptist Church of Cambridge at 6 pm. Directions are here, and a little more information is here.

Sunday:

On Sunday at 3 pm, the Sounds of Stow will perform the Cherubini Requiem in C minor. I'm also pretty bummed I won't be able to make it to this one - I have long wanted to hear a performance of this piece. This will be at the Hale Middle School, Hartley Road @ JCT Rte.117/62 (behind the firehouse) in Stow Center. The Sounds of Stow is remarkable for being a non-auditioned choir that holds itself to amazingly high standards - I've heard them before, and recommend the trip.

If you are in Worcester on Sunday, the Salisbury Singers will present "Choral Treasures of Latin America" at 2:30 pm at St.Peter’s Church, 929 Main Street, Worcester, MA . More information is at their website. (Warning: it's one of those websites with automatic music.)

And in a bit of interesting planning BOTH the Boston Lyric Opera and the Newton Symphony Orchestra are presenting Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel on Sunday. NSO at 7:00 pm at The Rashi Auditorium at 15 Walnut Park, Newton Corner, and the BLO up in Marblehead at 1:30 pm. More details on their respective websites.

Anthology

For those who follow this website regularly, you may be vaguely aware that I have been trying to get a small professional vocal group off the ground for over a year now. We settled on a new name - Anthology - and we have a shiny, shiny website up at www.anthologyvoices.com. With shiny, shiny audio clips of us singing! Including a bit of Brahms, some madrigal action, a little folk, a bit of Barbershop, and a little Sweet Honey in the Rock action. So skip on over and check it out, and then sign up to be on our mailing list! (Those e-mails come straight to me, so I'll be keeping tabs on who signs up!)

Weekend Concert Calendar, 3/20/08

Pretty much every Thursday the following thought crosses my brain: "Doot'n doo, what do I have to get done this evening? Oh, crap, I have to write up the Weekend Concert Calendar!" (Not that I don't do it out of love, but it does generally take over an hour.)

This week, the following thought crossed my brain: "Doot'n doo, what do I have to get done this evening? Oh, crap, I have to write up the Weekend Concert Calendar! Oh, but it's Holy Week, so that will take all of two seconds."

Well, maybe more than two seconds, but the fact remains that many singers and directors are busy with Christian-related activities (even the non-Christians) so the concert calendar this weekend is rather slim.

By the way, a disclaimer that you have probably already figured out: as a general rule I do not post notices of church services, even special ones, and I do not post notices of solo (or duet or what-have-you) vocal recitals. There are just too many events in each category. Obviously if I am personally excited about something, you may hear about it, but in general, that's my policy. So, for example, I'm probably not going to tell you that Handel and Haydn is doing a concert set this weekend called "Italian Virtuosi" with Dominique Labelle, soprano. That would be a typical example of something I probably wouldn't mention.

That said, what do we have this weekend?

Friday:

Because it is a world premiere, I will mention that the Cathedral Choir of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul at 138 Tremont St., Boston is premiering The Passion According to St. John by Karl Henning as part of their Good Friday liturgy. Performance at noon.

Trinity Church will present Bach's St. John Passion at 5:30. More details here. Trinity Church is in Copley Square.

On Friday and also Saturday (and tonight, but too late now) the BSO is performing Bach's St. Matthew Passion. This is at 7 pm at Symphony Hall. Details at their website. Haitink conducting.

Saturday:

There is one really exciting concert this week that I was very annoyed that I won't be able to make. The Orpheus Singers, directed by James Olesen (whom I just think is the bee's knees) will perform a concert of Irving Fine, Claudio Monteverdi, Marjorie Merryman, Donald Martino, and Seymour Shifrin. The Orpheus Singers is a pretty high-class deal - the singers I know who are in it are all professional-level - and what's more, it's FREE. This will be at the Slosberg Music Center at Brandeis University.

Also, those operas I reviewed a few days ago? Put on by Juventas and OperaHub? You can go see them yourself at 8 pm! At Boston Conservatory, 8 The Fenway, Boston.

Sunday:

Honestly, I got nuthin'. Paint some eggs, eat some chocolate, see you next week!

New operas

I just went to the Juventas/OperaHub production of three new chamber operas. I got a couple of comps, and although I couldn't persuade anyone to go with me - Holy Week rehearsals are eating people up - I'm very glad I went. However, part of the joy of going to new music concerts is talking about it afterwards, and I have no one to talk at! So my blog shall bear the brunt of the burden.

The first opera was called Dust of the Road by Marcus Karl Maroney. The composition was solid - I thought the orchestration was especially fine, and the vocal writing was well done, although I felt that he used the "have the singer stay on one note for a really long time for dramatic effect" conceit a bit too much, and I just didn't feel his vocal writing was very melodic in general - more through-composed and atmospheric, which just isn't my thing. However, there were some really nice moments, especially in the second half, and when he dropped out the orchestra for an a cappella moment towards the end, it was really beautiful and effective.

Then we got to the second opera. This one, A Rooster for Asclepius, fell into the category of "innovative." There was video, and weird costumes, and masks, and random extreme vocal effects like yodeling and hissing and having the singers hold their noses, and there didn't seem to be a point to any of it, so the combination of composition and staging was, for me, was rather tiresome. Trying to shock your audience for shock's sake is rather last-century, non?

I believe the third opera, RE: by Christine McClintock, may have been my favorite. I really, really liked the music for this one - she had some lovely melodies, and I liked the tension she set up between the rhythm of the melodies and the rhythm of the words. Unfortunately I really couldn't figure out what was going on - the book was a compilation of Craigslist snippets, and if there was plot, I'm not sure what happened. This was partially exacerbated by a problem that all of the operas faced, namely that of balance due to the room (see below) although I also felt that in this opera the composer layered instruments that were in the same range as the voices on top of them, so that made it harder to hear the voices. However, of all the composers I heard tonight, I will be most interested to see what she does in the future.

The main problem with the entire evening was the balance between the instruments and voices - whenever things got loud and dramatic, the singers were quite hard to hear, through no fault of their own. This was a problem with the room - it was just a room, not a stage, with a pointy ceiling that I suspect didn't reflect the sound back, and the orchestra was on the floor with the audience in front of the stage. The walls of the room also ate up the sound - if someone turned their head even just a slight angle away from the audience, there was a much more dramatic drop in volume than you would get on a normal stage. I am not sure what anyone could have done about this - performance space is hard to come by in this city.

The most delightful aspect of the whole evening was the level of the singers. They were just fantastic on all counts, and that includes acting, too, in addition to their voices. They were comfortable on stage, focused in their intention, beautiful diction, beautiful tone...I can't even pick any one singer out for special praise, because then I'd have to give individual props to all of them. The orchestra too was very fine (enough so that I am wondering where they came from and if I can convince any of them to play for me in the future.) But the singers - I just wanted to gather them all up under my wings and take them over to the Lyric or Opera Boston and say, "You must give all of these people leading roles and big salaries right now! What are you thinking, letting talent like this languish unappreciated! For shame!"

It's just depressing - I know so many singers that I respect so much, and they can't make a living. Where's a sympathetic billionaire when you need one?

Musical weekend, part II

The final concert I attended this past weekend was the Arlington-Belmont Chorale's performance on Sunday afternoon.

The Chorale performed three Bruckner motets, and Vivaldi's Gloria, both quite respectably, although the pianist on the latter was rather rickety, and the conductor of the former (Assistant Conductor Christopher Charig) had distractingly odd finger positions when conducting. However, the real excitement of the program was the premiere of Executive Orders, a new multi-movement work for chorus with solo vocal quartet, string quartet, and electric guitar, by my good friend Michael Veloso.

It was a setting of texts relating to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, and it was really good.

I tend to judge music on two scales. First there is what you might call the idea scale. Is it original? Beautiful? Inspired? Does it communicate? Is it interesting? Do I care? I am happy to report the answer is yes on all of the above.

But the point on which I am often far more critical is the second scale, which is competence of execution. Did you write well for the instruments, with respect to their ranges, timbres, and limitations? Did you balance your musicians well? Did you set the text with intelligence and attention to detail? If you were writing for a specific ensemble (as Mike was) did you consider their level of skill when composing? Would I ever consider performing this piece myself? In short, was your writing elegant? And again, the answer was a resounding yes.

I suspect that sometimes people, including composers and performing musicians, think that by this time in history, the only way to be truly original is to write something really hard. Surely, the theory goes, there is less variety of easy music to be written than hard music, as if both difficulty and originality exist in a sort of outwardingly expanding circle from a central point, and all the easy music has been written already, and the only way to do interesting things is to live on that event horizon of originality and difficulty.

But in fact, this is completely untrue. Mike wrote something completely fresh, and beautiful, and gripping. But he also wrote something that amateur musicians could master. And call me a Yankee pragmatist, but that impressed and delighted me the most. I am pleased to report that both the Chamber Chorus and the four amateur soloists did really well - diction, tuning, notes, rhythm, intensity - everything was there. Kristin Boardman, the alto soloist, and Brian Middleton, the tenor soloist, deserve particular praise for some really beautifully sung solos. Barry Singer, the conductor, did a very good job of assembling this piece.

So Mike succeeded beautifully in all possible ways, and deserves much praise, and I am very proud to be associated with him. The only frustrating part was that starting in about the middle of the first movement, I desperately wanted to be conducting this myself, with a big professional choir, and the Guarneri quartet, and maybe Steve Vai on the stage of Carnegie Hall. I feel very proprietary towards Mike's choral music, since we've worked together in the past, and this was a big milestone, and a great piece. Not having the resources to do it myself, and give it the full professional treatment so that I could do everything perfectly was very frustrating. The result is that today I was poking about online again, looking at DMA programs.

Anyways, Mike deserves more commissions. (There are two solutions to this - you could commision him directly, or someone could just GIVE ME A BIG FAT CHORAL CONDUCTING JOB and I'll take care of commissioning him myself.) Also, there will be a repeat performance on May 16 at 8 pm at First Parish in Arlington, and I suggest you go, especially if you are a conductor on the look-out for new repertoire (as every conductor should be.)

In short, why does everyone always perform the Vivaldi Gloria? It is both charming and not difficult. Well, now you have a new contender! Don't perform that anymore - perform Executive Orders instead! I am sure Mr. Veloso would be happy to send you a copy of the score for review. Right, Mike?

Musical weekend

It's been a good musical weekend. Friday I went out to Cohasset to see a couple of my church choir members in a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. This was well worth the trip! Joseph (one of my tenors) and the Pharaoh (another one of my tenors - yes, I have multiple tenors!) were both fantastic - Joseph in particular had a really charming stage presence and good facial expressions all the way through, in addition to a delightfully easy singing tone. And the Pharoah was appropriately hilarious. I was also blown away by the Narrator, a woman named Ann McCoy. She was totally fantastic. I rather feel she could have a professional career if she wanted to. I had a great time generally, and I have to say that Joseph is a really charming musical -I had forgotten. Somehow, although I have never owned a recording and have never been in the show, I knew all the music. A day later this is still a mystery to me.

Then tonight I went to the Back Bay Chorale's performance of Frank Martin's Mass for Double Choirs. The program was set up to imitate a mass service, so there were other works by French composers interspersed between the mass movements, which provided the overall framework. This worked really well - I thought it was very good programming. And the performance was very well-done. Solo soprano Shannon Salyards was wonderful on a set of pieces by Messiaen. My one quibble is that the soprano sound in the chorus was somewhat strained in the highest register. But I totally enjoyed the concert - really good tuning, good rhythmic accuracy, and a great blend. I hope they made a recording. It was also really nice to just listen to the Martin - I had only ever sung it, and music is different from the outside-in, as opposed to the inside-out!

Weekend Concert Calendar, 3/13/08

It is supposed to rain this weekend, so dig out those umbrellas, and figure out which concert you're going to go see! Remember, bad weather can really hurt the size of an audience, so it is up to us to counteract that trend! I myself am going to THREE concerts this weekend, and I am involved in NONE of them. This is some sort of record. But it is a very, very rich choral weekend.

Friday:

One of the biggest events this weekend has to be the Cantata Singers performance of Brahms' Requiem. They will be performing on Friday at 8 pm and on Sunday at 3 pm at Jordan Hall. Also on the program will be Ferruccio Busoni's Berceuse élégiaque and Kurt Weill's Concerto for Violin and Wind Instruments (in keeping with their Year of Weill.) The solo singers will be Jennifer Foster and Dana Whiteside. And Richard Dyer will be giving a pre-concert lecture at 6:45 and 1:45 (Friday and Sunday, respectively.) The Cantata Singers are one of the best choruses in Boston, and there is absolutely no doubt that this will be fantastic.

But they have big competition with The Boston Secession, which will perform "Handel in the Strand." "This concert traces the musical inheritance of Handel’s heirs – from the man himself to works by Mendelssohn, Brahms, Weill, Stravinsky and even Percy Grainger." First Church in Cambridge, 8:00 pm. More information is at their website.

More competition comes from the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium, which will present Bach's Mass in b minor on Friday at Sanders Theater at 8 pm. This is also bound to be a special performance. More information is on their website.

Saturday:

For Saturday, the one I'll be choosing is the Back Bay Chorale's performance of Frank Martin's Mass for Double Choir. Also on the program are pieces by Messaien and Poulenc. Shannon Salyards is the solo soprano. The Back Bay Chorale is one of my alma...choruses, or whatever the proper term is, and conductor Scott Jarrett is rising fast. Everywhere I turn I hear about people who adore his conducting and rehearsing, and these are sane, level-headed, tough-to-impress people, mind you, not given to hyperbole. He will be giving a pre-concert lecture at 7. The Martin Mass is adored by those who know it, so if you don't yet know it, I recommend you come! Emmanuel Church at 8 pm.

But the Brookline Chorus is presenting a very intriguing alternative. They are presenting J.S. Bach’s two cantatas BWV 19 and 149 and Benjamin Britten’s cantata “The Company of Heaven." Intriguing programming. This is at 8 pm at All Saints Parish in Brookline - more info at their website.

Also on Saturday, Cantemus will be putting on a concert called “Voice of Jazz: Cantemus Swings!” Come hear selections from the Great American Songbook. 7:30 pm, Pingree School, 537 Highland Street, South Hamilton - more information is at their website. They will also present this program on Sunday at 4:00 at The Governor’s Academy, 1 Elm Street, Byfield.

Yet more for Saturday - the Concord Chorus presents the Brahms Zigeunerlieder, along with Stanford and Monteverdi. 8:00 pm at Concord Academy Chapel, 166 Main Street, Concord, MA.

Sunday:

On Sunday, the MOST exciting performance is the Arlington-Belmont Chorale, which will perform a world premiere composed by my good friend Michael Veloso. It is called Executive Orders and is a setting of texts relating to the interment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, scored for chorus, soloists, string quartet, and electric guitar. 3 pm, First Parish UU Church in Arlington. Come and hear a piece never before heard (well, in public - one presumes they've been practicing!)

But, considering it's Palm Sunday, you may choose the Masterworks Chorale performance of Bach's St. John Passion at Harvard University. Featuring tenor Jason McStoots (Evangelist), bass-baritone Ulysses Thomas (Jesus), soprano Teresa Wakim, mezzo-soprano Deborah Rentz-Moore, tenor Charles Blandy, and baritone Sumner Thompson. This will be in Sanders Theater at 3 pm, with a 2:00 pre-concert lecture with Steve Ledbetter (and the pre-concert lecture is bound to be more interesting with the St. John Passion than practically any other piece.)

The Paul Madore Chorale will also celebrate Palm Sunday with an all-Bach program, including Easter Cantata #4 "Christ Lag in Todesbanden". This will be in the evening, 7 pm, at First Parish Church, 225 Cabot Street, Beverly, MA.

For Sunday, also see Cantemus and Cantata Singers, above.

Did I forget anything? Give me the details in the comments!

Turandot

I just saw the Lowell House performance of Turandot at Harvard. This is a quick note to say that it was a great production, and I highly recommend it. In particular, the two leads, Turandot and Calaf, were fantastic. I, along with many other people, wondered where Lowell House was going to find singers in Boston to fill those roles, but they succeeded admirably. Mad props to Michelle Trainor and Kevin Courtemanche, as they were both excellent. All the soloists were very solid, as was the chorus, orchestra, and everyone involved.

Although I have to say (and I know my mother is going to roll her eyes and say, "But it's opera!") that the plot is grade-A icky. Everyone is completely off their rocker. All the leads did an excellent job of making their characters real and emotional, but especialy the plot line in the third act of "You're sexually harassing me! This is making me fall in love with you!" is just a hard sell under the best of circumstances. Not to mention the old chestnut "I've seen her for five seconds! I am now madly in love with her and will abandon my blind, lame father on the streets to pursue her!"

But, as Anna Russell would say, "That's the beauty of grand opera - you can do anything, so long as you sing it!"

News, and Weekend Concert Calendar 3/6/08

Apologies for slacking off on the Weekend Concert Calendar for the past 2 weeks. The reason is that I have a new job!

I am no longer working for the Boston Cecilia. I had a great time there, and I'm going to miss them all very much. However, I'm also quite excited about my new job - I'll be working at Harvard Law School in the Office of Public Interest Advising. Basically, we are the career services office for non-profit and government work.

So, for the past two weeks I have been working both jobs, which left me a little limp, and disinclined to scan the concert pages. However, guilt over my dereliction of duty has propelled me back into my usual schedule, so here are the concerts lined up for this weekend! (See if you can find the one that I'm in. It's like Where's Waldo! Only if Waldo were, like, female, and blond, and singing, and someone who wouldn't be caught dead in horizontal red-and-white stripes,* and not actually hiding anywhere. And without that whole looking-at-a-picture element. So, OK. Maybe not so much like Waldo after all.)


Friday

Chorus Pro Musica, 8:00 pm, Cathedral Church of St. Paul at 138 Tremont St. in Boston - They will be performing "A Celebration of New England Composers" in honor of Daniel Pinkham. (There's a lot of that going around.) From Billings right up until the present day, there are a lot of good composers that have come from this area, so go and feel some local pride! More information at their website.

Boston Choral Ensemble, 8:00 pm, First Church in Cambridge - The Boston Choral Ensemble will perform di Lasso's "Lagrime de San Pietro." More information at their website. I don't know this piece, but I love Orlando di Lasso, so I'm somewhat sad that a rehearsal prevents me from making this concert.


Saturday

New England Classical Singers, 7:30 pm, St. Augustines Church, Essex St., Andover - Two classics - the Fauré Requiem and "Rejoice in the Lamb" by Benjamin Britten. If you are not intimately familiar with both of these pieces, then go! You must hear them! And if you are, then you already know why you should go. More info at their website.

Chorus North Shore, 8:00 pm, Our Lady of Hope Church, Linebrook Rd., Ipswich, MA - It seems to be a good weekend for American composers - this concert features Bernstein, Billings, Copland, Getchell, Thompson and other American composers. More info at their website - this concert will also be on Sunday at First Parish Church, 225 Cabot St., Beverly, MA.

Harvard Glee Club and the Radcliffe Choral Society, 8:00 pm, Sanders Theatre in Cambridge - This concert is titled "Musica Diversa", and that's just what these two groups will be singing - anything that caught their fancy over the past half-century. More information at their respective websites.

Assabet Valley Mastersingers, 8:00 pm, St. Mary's Church, Shrewsbury, MA - This is a mixed bag concert, so I will simply quote from their website: "Bach's Lobet Denn Herrn will be contrasted with Rachmaninoff's setting of the same text. Similar comparisons of musical settings will be Victoria with Lauridsen, and Brahms with Whitacre. This exciting and eclectic program will also include American music from the Spiritual to Randall Thompson's "Ye Shall Have a Song."" More information at said website.

Rachmaninoff Festival Choir, 7:30 pm, St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church, Cambridge, MA -
Rachmaninoff's Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom will be performed by the Rachmaninoff Festival Choir combined with members of the Down East Singers and the Bowdoin College Chorus, both located in mid-coast Maine. More info is at the church's website.


Sunday

Choir of All Saints Parish, 3:00 pm, All Saints Parish, 1773 Beacon St., Brookline, MA - The Choir of All Saints presents their Annual Sacred Concert of Remembrance featuring the Fauré Requiem and other sacred works by Fauré. Jessica Cooper, soprano and Robert Honeysucker, baritone. Donald Teeters, conducting. Free! Also featuring, ringing in the alto section, a familiar blogger!

Polymnia Choral Society, 4:00 pm, St. Mary's Church, 46 Myrtle St., Melrose - Polymnia presents the Cherubini Requiem, which is not so well known nowadays, but which was much beloved in times past (Beethoven famously listed it as one of his favorite pieces.) Highly worth going to see. More information at their website.

Seraphim Singers, 4:00 pm, The United Church of Christ, 496 Main Street, Medfield, MA - this is a tough day to decide! Seraphim Singers are a stellar choir that handles astonishingly difficult music with ease (I should know, I sang with them until Boston Cecilia took away my Monday nights, and I think that's the hardest rep I've ever had put in front of me.) They'll be performing Schütz Deutsches Magnificat; Byrd Ave Maria & other works honoring the Virgin Mary. More info at their website. They will also be performing this concert for FREE at St. Mary's Chapel at Boston College on Tuesday at 8:00 pm.

Boston Choral Ensemble, 2:00 pm, St. John the Evangelist, 35 Bowdoin St., Boston - see entry under Friday.

Chorus North Shore, 3:00 pm, First Parish Church, 225 Cabot St., Beverly, MA - see entry under Saturday.

Assabet Valley Mastersingers, 8:00 pm, St. Mark's School, Southborough, MA - see entry under Saturday.

Quincy Choral Society, 2:00 pm, Sacred Heart School Auditorium, Hancock St. (Rte.3A) N. Quincy - "Lights, Camera, Auction!" Join them for a free concert, a silent auction, and a sing-along! They will be performing a fun assortment of pieces from movies and musicals. More information is here. (Warning - their website is rather loud.)

Mass Theatrica, 2:00 pm, Southgate of Shrewsbury, 30 Julio Drive, Shrewsbury, MA - an open read-through of the G&S operetta Iolanthe. It appears that the cast for soloists has been settled, but if you bring your own score, you can sing in the chorus. More information is here.

In short, a very rich weekend! Don't forget, live music is like nothing else. Get out there and physically remind yourself of that fact.



*Unless I was dressed up like a pirate. That's kind of a no-brainer, right? Except one must be careful about making sweeping statements on the web.

Links - Korea and England

From my brother comes an article about the recent New York Phil performance in North Korea, and the use of music generally as a diplomatic tool.

And from my father comes an article about the first female assistant conductor of the oldest orchestra in Britain, and, says the article, the first woman to hold "such a position in the country." It is not clear whether this means the first woman to get a two-year contract, or the first assistant conductor, but either way, what year are we in? The wheels of change sure do move slowly. And yet people still sit around and debate whether sexism exists in regard to conductors.