October can be a month of drastic weather changes. Our choirs this October seem to be embracing change but aren’t relying on the vagaries of nature; the changes – the musical offerings – are conscious actions, intentional and purposeful, designed to make a difference.
One of our choirs is promoting a bold woman of centuries past who hoped to make a difference.
In 1568 Maddalena Casulana wrote, in reference to her compositions, these words to Isabella de Medici stating that she wished…
…in addition to providing some evidence of my devotion to Your Excellency, also to show the world the futile error of men who believe themselves patrons of the high gifts of intellect, which according to them cannot also be held in the same way by women. Because of all this, I did not wish to fail to publish them, hoping that in Your Excellency’s bright name they would achieve such light as might kindle some other, higher talent to succeed more clearly in that which except for the spirit, I have not been able to show.
Gutsy lady, yes?
On October 19 and 20, In Mulieribus is showcasing Maddalena Casulana’s higher talents with newly restored madrigals of 1583. In 2021–four centuries after the death of the Italian lutist, singer and first woman to publish her compositions–the alto parts to her madrigals were discovered and reunited with the whole set of seventeen. In Mulieribus now performs thirteen madrigals from the newly reconstructed set.
Casulana, the lutenist, will be honored in this concert by the talents of John Lenti. Perhaps you have heard the Seattle-based Renaissance expert in performances with Portland Baroque Orchestra. In this IM concert Lenti will solo on two Casulana madrigals which he has set for lute. On theorbo, he will add another dimension to IM’s silky renderings of Casulana’s madrigals. Other artists on the program are Zachary Lenox, Michael Hilton, and John Cox.
In Mulieribus, with John Lenti, help Casulana achieve the light she deserves on Saturday, October 19, 7:30 pm and Sunday, October 20, 4:00 pm, at The Madeleine Parish, Portland. Tickets and more information here.
Authentic pathways
Walk “In the Footsteps of St. Demetrios” when Cappella Romana sings the newly researched world premiere of music from the Saint’s lifetime. But what is the story of Demetrios?
A Stanley Kubrick 30-second pitch to Warner Bros. might go like this:
Roman-looking city, 270 AD. Demetrios’s brief life begins. Born into a prominent family, became an effective military leader and, in his unwavering devotion to Christianity, was successful in leading many others to the faith. But his proselytizing and refusals to recant his faith got him in hot water with anti-Christian edicts of 303 AD. Then Demetrios gives blessings for victory to the Christian Nestor, who defeats Lyaeus, the most feared gladiator of Rome and enrages Emperor Maximian who orders Demetrios’s and Nestor’s deaths. It’s movie magic. We’ll get Khachaturian for the music.
Of course, they weren’t just characters in a script. St. Demetrios and Nestor were killed in 305, along with tens of thousands of other martyred Christians persecuted from approximately 303 to 311. And music of their faith and their time would have been sung in praise and grief and devotion.
Experience chants that St. Demetrios would have heard in Thessaloniki, chants lifted in praise of the Great Martyr after his death and perhaps sung in his namesake sanctuary Hagia Demetrios. This is Cappella Romana at its Byzantine best, introducing audiences to the ancient composers and reuniting us with authentic sounds. And immediately after the Portland/Seattle concerts these choral scholars journey to Los Angeles for a concert and residency, which includes participating in new acoustic research studies and recording the “Footsteps” repertoire. This is authentic music magic.
Cappella Romana performs, “In the Footsteps of St. Demetrios” on the weekend of St. Demetrios’s feast day, in Portland on Friday, October 25, 7:30 pm at St. Mary’s Cathedral and in Seattle on Saturday, October 26, 3:00 pm at St. Demetrios Orthodox Church and in Los Angeles on Sunday, October 27, 5:00 pm at St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral. Tickets and more information here.
The Bach Cantata Choir is still on their summer footsteps-of-Bach tour high. Conductor Ralph Nelson shared recently with OAW that last June the Choir embarked on “one of the greatest musical highlights in our choir’s 19-year history. In a kind of selfish way, we want to preserve the feeling of the tour for a little longer.” You will hear familiar Bach “tunes” but by different composers in different arrangements. One such example on this October 27th program is by Georg Philipp Telemann who wrote, as did Bach, a cantata based on the Luther hymn Ein Feste Berg.
BCC continues its “Discovery Series” with a performance of הַלְלוּ יָהּ (“Hallelujah”) by Jewish composer Salamone Rossi, a contemporary of Monteverdi. Listen here to this beautiful Rossi setting of Psalm 148 for a cappella choir.
You will hear “Halt, was du hast” by J. M. Bach – Johann Michael (of Gehren) – Bach’s distant cousin who flourished in the middle baroque period; J. S. Bach’s 30-minute Missa Brevis in G Major, BWV 236 will conclude the program. Soloists joining the 12-piece orchestra are soprano, Isabella Hanreiter; alto, Sheryl Wood; tenor, Leslie Green; and bass, Karl Hein. A Holiday Market follows the concert in the Fellowship Hall.
The Bach Cantata Choir opens their season on Sunday, October 27, 2:00 pm at Rose City Park Presbyterian Church. Donations to the free concert are appreciated. More information may be found here.
Teachers as lifelong learners
How are we fortunate enough to be offered a live performance of the Missa Rigensis of Uģis Prauliņš? Because In Medio director John Eisemann, like some of our best teachers, is a lifelong learner.
“I found the piece years ago,” wrote Eisemann in a recent email to OAW, “while exploring the discography of the Trinity College Cambridge Choir under the direction of Stephen Layton.” The 2002, 30-ish minute piece is a Mass setting “unlike any I’ve ever heard before,” continued Eisemann, “just the right mixture of traditional harmonies blended with unexpected twists and turns.” Listen to the “Kyrie” here.
Choral music lovers out there, you might be quite familiar with the works of other contemporary Baltic composers – Veljo Tormis and Arvo Párt from Estonia and Eriks Ešenvalds from Latvia. Eisemann acknowledges these brilliant composers as champions in the Baltic “choral mecca” but offers a few more names to add to that list. Early 20th century Estonian Cyrillus Kreek’s Psalms of David and two works by contemporary Latvian composer Laura Jēkabsone are programmed. Also hear Lithuanian Monika Sokaitė’s lush harmonies in a new setting of In Paradisum. And, yes, there will be Ešenvalds whose Only In Sleep will serve as a calming closer, and as an amuse-bouche for the composer’s appearance in an all-Ešenvalds May concert presented by Oregon Repertory Singers. But first…
…join In Medio for “Baltic Expedition” – Missa Rigensis by Uģis Prauliņš on Friday, October 25 at 7:00 pm and Sunday, October 27 at 3:00 pm, both concerts at Augustana Lutheran Church, Portland. Reserve your free tickets and read more information here.
Share and Shop Local
Three composers, three unique life pathways to their art. Two share common elements in their texts – nature and poetry of women – one sets religious texts of their father. And they live in our community.
Sydney Guillaume, Stacey Philipps and Joan Szymko are Portland composers; their music is “Homegrown.” But for the first time, as these three Portland creative treasures share their music with us they share the stage with each other in Oregon Repertory Singers concerts on October 26 and 27. But they are also going to make a space for a fourth homegrown composer who has “supported” ORS for decades, ORS accompanist Naomi LaViolette. The ORS Youth Choir will be Racing the Moon in LaViolette’s most recent choral work, premiered last year.
While homegrown describes the local composing artists, the other half of the concert title “Think Choral, Shop Local” presents a model for choirs everywhere. This title comes from an Interest Session presented at the most recent Northwestern American Choral Directors Association conference by Philipps and ORS Youth Choir Conductor Aubrey Patterson. Here’s the message: program and commission works from your local artists; let folks know that these talented folks are our neighbors, our teachers, creative people our children can look up at and say “maybe I could do that.” ORS walks the walk. The Youth Choir program has a homegrown Composer-in Residence – Stacey Philipps.
Before you go, get to know Guillaume by listening to a 2022 podcast interview, “Healing Through Music”, here. And get to know Philipps and Szymko better by watching their interviews with ORS Artistic Director Ethan Sperry from the pandemic-time “Sperry Sessions.” Find out which composer believes “choral communities are a metaphor for love”.
In another gesture of community spirit Oregon Repertory Singers has invited local artisans to share the creative space at this concert. Come early to the “art market” in the Reser lobby; mingle, converse and perhaps “shop local” from the creative works of Lily Henry Jewelry, Jess Because Art, Origami Jewelry Tokyo, and many more. Oh, there’s one more artistic enterprise with a name that really fits here: Portland Is What We Make It.
Oregon Repertory Singers picks “Homegrown: Think Choral, Shop Local” as their season opener on Saturday, October 26 and Sunday, October 27, both days at 4 pm at the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts. Tickets and more concert detail are here.
A Diary is Sung
From 1942 to 1944 young Annelies Frank and her family lived in hiding, as did so many Jewish families, during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Barely into her teens, Anne confided her precious thoughts to her diary, which she called “Kitty.” Sixty years after her death in 1945 at age 15, British composer James Whitbourn set to music texts from Anne’s diary as translated and compiled by Melanie Challenger. Corvallis Repertory Singer performs Annelies on October 13. The composition digs deeply into Anne’s fears and emotions but also embraces her youthful fancy and hopeful spirit.
Soprano Taylor Hulett sings Anne’s words in this 75-minute, 14-movement work for soprano solo, choir and instrumental ensemble. While Whitbourn has composed a full orchestral setting for Annelies conductor Steven Zielke stated in a recent Visit Corvallis article that the composer’s setting for piano, violin, cello and clarinet would be beautifully served in the new Detrick Hall at the Patricia Reser Arts Complex (PRAx): “The quietness of the room, the beauty of the room.”
For further excellent information on Whitbourn’s Annelies, refer to these program notes written by Portlander Susan Wladaver-Morgan.
Corvallis Repertory Singers performs “Annelies” in Corvallis, on Sunday, October 13 at 3 pm at Patricia Reser Arts Complex (PRAx)/Detrick Hall. Tickets and more detail here.
Requiems
Central Oregon Mastersingers celebrates composer Gabriel Fauré on the 100th anniversary of his death with a performance of his Requiem on October 12 and 13. But you might never have heard the beloved work this way before. Conductor Christian Clark has programmed a 2007 arrangement for string quintet and organ by Michael Higgins which emphasizes the works’ intimacy and lyricism and allows the choir to achieve a delicacy sometimes overshadowed in full orchestral performance. Listen here to the opening movement in Higgins’ setting.
Also programmed on the concert are two works by a brilliant student of Fauré, Lili Boulanger. Pianist Diane Thielen collaborates on the Boulanger; the Dove String Quartet and organist Stephen Marshall on the Fauré. Vocal soloists for the Requiem are Samantha Winter, soprano, and Sterling Roberts, bass.
Fauré is commemorated by Central Oregon Mastersingers on Saturday, October 12, 7 p, Trinity Episcopal Church, Bend (St. Helen’s Hall) and Sunday, October 13, 3 pm, Nativity Lutheran Church. Tickets and more detailed concert information are here.
Jana Hart, conductor of the Vancouver Master Chorale of Southwest Washington has sung Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem numerous times, as soprano soloist and as choir member. She has conducted it. She knows the piece intimately. Perhaps you do, too. And yet it is never stale because any live performance we participate in or hear is new to us – has meaning to us in the present moment.
Hart will be in the audience for the October 19 and 20 Requiem performances. She will have prepared the choir but the concert will be conducted by Robert Davis, Artistic Director of the Southwest Washington Symphony who are performing with VMC in these concerts. Hart will listen to Gina Challed and Alexis Balkowitsch, soprano soloists; altos Samantha Holm and Anneliese del Cambre; tenor Ethan Reveire; and bass Gennadiy Tsybikov. In recent email to OAW Hart expressed her joy and pride at the solo vocal talent amassed for this performance. And she is pleased that in her 15-year tenure with Vancouver’s first community choir she has participated in great successes.
It is her final season the Chorale. She plans to continue at least through the VMC holiday concert but in early 2025 she and her husband will be moving to the Pittsburgh area to be nearer to family. The decision, like the music in the Verdi, evokes a roller coaster of emotions, of course. But there is a profound peace to be found there as well. Listen here.
The Requiem concerts will be performed first at Lower Columbia College, Longview–where conductor Davis is Director of Performing Arts–and again at Skyview Auditorium in Vancouver. “The logistics of transporting an orchestra, 100 singers and soloists between the two venues are challenging,” Hart remarked in that same email. But isn’t it great for our audiences! A wonderful moment in music in two communities by two organizations who have offered many seasons of music – almost 60 for the Symphony and 76 for the Chorale. Bravo.
Verdi’s Requiem is performed on Saturday, October 19, 7 pm at Lower Columbia College, Wollenberg Auditorium, Longview (More info here; SWS concerts are free) and Sunday, October 20, 3 pm at Skyview Auditorium, Vancouver (tickets are here).
A Moment for Media Music
On October 13, Oregon Symphony Orchestra makes space for the Portland State University Chamber Choir in a movie music concert that is out of this world performing 2001: A Space Odyssey; Independence Day; Star Wars, Star Trek and more. Remember how even the wonderful wordless original “Star Trek” theme by Alexander Courage – oh, you Trekkers are already singing it, aren’t you – beams you into the final frontier on the first minor-seventh leap. Oh, and Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra (used in 2001) isn’t bad either.
On the following weekend its Oregon Chorale’s turn to soar with the OSO in the music of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. If you are a video gamer you are on this like Waluigi. If not, you can still appreciate the artistry and skill required for creating hours of fully voiced and orchestrated music. Here’s a sampling.
Composer William Campbell, multiple media music award recipient and Chair of the Music Department and Director of Compositional Activities at Linfield University, spoke of this unheralded music world in recent email to OAW. “We hear a lot about film music composers, and even venerate their music. I think we could spend more attention on video games, as evidenced by the proliferation of concerts playing these pieces! The music is often memorable, well-orchestrated and recorded, and supports the game in ways that film scores support films.” (See CONNECTIONS below for more information from Campbell).
“The Sound of Space” is on Saturday, October 12 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, October 13 at 2:00 pm at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Tickets and details are here. “Final Fantasy VII Rebirth” is performed on Saturday, October 19, 7:30 pm at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Tickets and details are here.
Seeking Margaret Bonds
In 1960 Margaret Bonds wrote these words to her dear friend Langston Hughes:
Langston,
I am aware that a few other Negro composers….do not wish to be known as a “Negro composer”. I do wish to be so known.
(Read the entire letter here).
She was known and in her lifetime she did achieve a significant level of success with well critiqued and ground-breaking performances of songs, cantatas, instrumental works and choral works. Upon her death at age 59 memorial services for the extraordinary woman were held all around the US. Her two longest works, Montgomery Variations for orchestra and Credo for choir and piano or orchestra were composed in the last decade of her life.
According to John Michael Cooper, historian and author of an upcoming premiere biography on Bonds, “Margaret Bonds heard her magisterial setting of W.E.B. Du Bois’s Credo performed just twice: once with piano in Washington, D.C., and once with orchestra in California.” She died in 1972 only weeks before a third. Then, after two more performances the Credo lay dormant for 49 years. Sadly, you’ll not find Bond’s name in many modern music history books; not alphabetically placed between two of her American contemporaries Barber and Copland. Makes us think, yes?
It makes Choral Arts Ensemble take action. On October 12 and 13 CAE invites you to a performance of Bond’s longest choral work, Credo, as premiered with piano in 1967. The text of the seven-movement work is taken from a 1904 prose poem and proclamation for racial equality of the same name by William Edward Burghardt Du Bois. Pianist for this performance is Jennifer Creek Hughes.
Bonds was a woman of social action, using her talents and influence during the American Civil Rights period. Her longest instrumental work, Montgomery Variations, highlights the pivotal events in that city – the third movement is entitled “The March.” Her choice in the mid 1960s to set voices to Du Bois Credo was purposeful. Her choice to carry traditional spiritual themes in her music was her belief, as Du Bois wrote, in “pride of race.”
Bonds also wrote, in that same letter to Hughes, that on all concerts by her friend and singer Etta Moten were “programmed at least one group by Negro composers (poets included). When I traveled with her we often devoted entire concerts to the works of Negros.” CAE follows Bond’s model in this concert with compositions by modern Black composers and text by Black poets and orators.
Excellent program notes by CAE’s Susan Wladaver-Morgan, already posted here on the choir’s website, provide rich detail and background about the other varied and inspirational works you will hear.
Margaret Jeanette Allison Bonds was a talented composer, a pianist, a fearless advocate for change and a Black woman with an intense “pride of race.” Let her be so known.
Choral Arts Ensemble presents “I Believe”, the Credo of Margaret Bonds and more on Saturday, October 12 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, October 13, at 3:00 pm, both concerts at Rose City Park United Methodist Church. Tickets and more information here.
We began with Maddalena, we conclude with Margaret. Besides having been brilliant composers, what do they have in common? They have us, carrying their voices into the better worlds for which they had such hope.
CONNECTIONS
Media Music gets an education
Here’s a little sneak peek from William Campbell at how Linfield University gives credit to budding media composers next spring. “Media music is a term that describes music written for film, tv, video games, radio, commercials, corporate videos, and more. I have quite a few students in my composition studio at Linfield who are hoping to write video game music professionally. Because of that and my background in composing music for films, our focus next semester at Linfield will be on composing for media. As part of the Lacroute Composer Readings and Chamber Music Mentorship Program at Linfield, we will be composing and recording music for short films and discuss with guest composers how these skills may be transferred to multiple mediums.”
Light Opera of Portland
Can you sing all of the choruses and whistle all the airs from that infernal (sublime, entertaining, brilliant) Pirates of Penzance? Well, here’s a glorious thing. Light Opera of Portland’s fall Gilbert and Sullivan production is that very beloved Gilbert and Sullivan opera. Pirates opens on Friday, October 11th and runs through the 27th at the Brunish Theater, Antoinette Hatfield Hall, Portland. Tickets and more information here.
Sanctuary for Halloween
Portland’s Trinity Episcopal Cathedral once again presents music – a fingertip of choral and a cauldron of organ – guaranteed to raise goosebumps and delight Halloween lovers of all ages. Come in costume and enjoy a fun-filled and safe – if a tidbit spooky – Halloween event “PipeScreams Halloween Spectacular” with special guest emcee Nicole Onoscopi on Saturday, October 26 Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. Pumpkin carving begins at 4:30 pm and the concert begins at 6:00 pm. More spooky information here.
Rag at McMenamins
Enjoy some libations and nibbles, sing some songs, learn about ragtime and listen to the piano music of Scott Joplin. Sound cool? Local educator Kendra Kay Friar thought so when McMenamins Hotel Oregon invited her to tell the story of “ragtime in McMinnville” centered on the 1905 opening of the hotel, then called Hotel Elberton. Mattie’s Room opens at 6, lecture and historic fun begins at 7. Read about it here.
Daryl Browne is a music educator, alto, flutist and writer who lives in Beaverton, Oregon.