In Choral Season 25-26 Part I you learned about some of the great choral concerts ahead for the month of September and a few of the special events and anniversary celebrations our choirs have in store for our communities. Doesn’t the approaching fall look like a wonderful season of singing? 

It continues with works never heard in our region and works that you welcome back as old friends. In these September and October choral happenings you will see the power of voices raised together, the power of community pride and collaboration, of choral scholarship, and a demonstration of why Oregon and Southwest Washington have a reputation for choral excellence.

Golden Age Scholarship

Coming up on September 21 is Portland’s Cantores in Ecclesia, a choir that has been a local leader in Western sacred choral literature for – golly, director Blake Applegate, is this right – 42 years? Though an independent organization, Cantores serves as resident choir at Holy Rosary Parish and also serves St. Agatha’s Catholic Church in Portland; but they take their beautiful sound to the concerts hall as well. 

This past summer Cantores undertook a three-city tour of Eastern Europe (read Amanda Waldroupe’s account here). Watch and listen to a sample of that tour program here, Adora te devote by Cecilia McDowall sung in Budapest, Prague and Krakow.

Hear CIS in concert in Portland in the “The Genius of Josquin,” a program first offered last spring in Salem on Willamette University’s Goudy Distinguished Artist Series. Enjoy the way Josquin des Prez’s music, a turning point for Early Renaissance choral practice, paints and dances with text. Complex and spirited, Josquin is music to be enjoyed and relived in performance. 

Scholar Kerry McCarthy will provide commentary on Josquin – his music and life in the latter half of the 15^th century. Catch your fav choral scholar before she heads to England and a fellowship at Oxford’s renowned research hub All Souls College. “I might end up being the person there who has the least eccentric topic! And maybe also the dumbest person there.” Sorry, Kerry, not buying it. We’ve heard you speak and read your books. When McCarthy’s time at Oxford is at an end, she will bring the fruits of her studies back home for a Rose City Renaissance workshop. More about that in a moment, but first:

Join Cantores in Ecclesia for the “Genius of Josquin” on Sunday, September 21, 4 pm at Holy Rosary Aquinas Hall. Tickets can be purchased here.

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Musical scholarship? We love it and have a long reputation for promoting it from our concert halls. Of course, we expect choral scholarship from our area universities. We hope that the future music educators and performers coming from these institutions are receiving varied opportunities to learn about, sing and conduct Josquin and Dunphy and everything between. But our intelligent choral audiences love to experience the early choral literature just for fun. That’s why John Cox, founding director of Rose City Renaissance, has designed this season’s RCR workshops to be your destination for choral adventures in the “golden age” of choral music. 

“When we look at a score from the 15^th, 16^th or 17^th century there is a lot to think about,” said John Cox in recent phone conversation with OAW. “It is such a foreign language compared to later repertoire which has so many markings that tell us what to do.” An afternoon of learning that “language,” with a lab choir of professional singers and period instruments – cool. “In last year’s workshops,” said Cox, “we were about 60% singers and 40% instrumentalists. Singers loved hearing the instrumental timbre.” Here’s a sample of a Palestrina work you might enjoy in the first RCR workshop, “Madrigal: The Legacy of Petrarch” on September 28. 

Rose City Renaissance is offering six more workshops this season; one of them, in March, “Si placet” (“if it pleases”), illuminates the practice of Renaissance students building on their teachers’ previous works, in particular Josquin des Prez. Woohoo, Renaissance riffing! And then in April McCarthy presents “Music at the Court of Henry VIII.” So here’s a plan. Hear Josquin with Cantores in Ecclesia on September 21, and later this season sing “respectfully recomposed” Josquin.

But first, take in the first RCR offering “Madrigal: The Legacy of Petrarch” on Sunday, September 28, 1-4 pm at Grace Memorial Episcopal Church, Portland. Registration and details are here.

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Speaking of Renaissance choral scholarship in our region, in the very first Grammy Awards, in 1959, a collaborative recording by Mt. Angel Abbey Choir and Portland Symphonic Choir, now celebrating its 80^th season, was nominated as top classical/operatic choral disc of the year. The work on their RCA VIctor LP was Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Requiem Mass. 

On Tour with Cappella Romana

One of Portland’s, and the world’s, pinnacles of choral scholarship has been raising their voices at the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht this past week. Cappella Romana will be beginning their season at home pretty soon (more to come on that) but on September 6th they wowed the Utrecht Festival audience (the photo above is from their sound check in Utrecht).

Visit CR’s facebook page for more photos and news about the Festival. And notice that the ensemble’s next tour concert is on September 23 at Fordham University, Bronx, NY where they will perform Oregon composer Robert Kyr’s A Time for Life; on tour with them are members of Portland’s 45th Parallel Universe. The following day CR will perform in a Lincoln Center ceremony in which “His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I – the Green Patriarch who has made environmental stewardship a sacred duty” (CR media) – will receive the Templeton Prize in the presence of Jane Goodall and other luminaries. Read more about that, and all of the CR tour programs here. 

Orff at home

In Choral Season 25-26 Part 1 you learned about the upcoming Carmina Burana performance by Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and Portland Symphonic Choir. Good news. The Saturday, September 27 evening performance will be live-streamed. Purchase live-stream or in person tickets and find out more about the whole weekend of Orff here. 

Musical Musings

In his early thirties composer British composer Gustav Holst turned toward mysticism. His embrace of Eastern practices is reflected in his Choral Hymns from Rig Veda which are being featured in In Mulieribus’s October 18 season opening concert “All Shall Be Well.” Holst’s Rig Veda Hymns were written over an extended period and premiered in segments. Some detractors were unsure about the “new” sounds infiltrating the musical conservatism of Edwardian England; it is a joy to hear how Holst “broke through” in these choral works. By the way, as you listen if you think “golly there’s Benjamin Britten” you wouldn’t be far wrong. Intrigued. Go hear.

The concert’s central message “All Shall Be Well” draws on the luminous mysticism of Julian of Norwich as set to music by Contemporary British Composer Carol Jones. “When I discovered Carol Jones’ piece titled All Shall Be Well,” wrote IM founding conductor Anna Song in recent email to OAW, “I knew it was the perfect title for our first concert of the season. I honestly had no idea that this phrase had also inspired many other choral concerts over the years, but it makes sense, given the beauty and optimism reflected in Norwich’s quote. The repetitive aspects of the piece give it a meditative quality, but also serve to build confidence and provide comfort.” Carol Jones’s works can be found in “Multitude of Voyces,” a treasure-chest of sacred music by historically under-represented composers.

Also on that concert is a sampling of one of America’s most important composers – though underperformed in the choral world – Steve Reich. Know What Is Above You is a work that might just convince you of the beauty of taut SSSA dissonance – a treat for listener and performer. Listen to it here. 

Later in the season turn to In Mulieribus for a calming wintertide influence – but “calm” is probably not the keyword for IM’s second annual “Among Women” event next March. Inspirational, transformative and courageous might better describe the inaugural Women’s Day Event held last year. And IM will finish their season with something started this past year, a premiere of the 2024 Call for Scores winning composition. Congratulations Charles Rose, local sound engineer, composer and ArtsWatch contributor. We’ll hear you in the spring at the conclusion of IM’s 25-26 “Murmurs of the Muse” season.

“All Shall Be Well” at In Mulieribus’s season opening concerts on Saturday, October 18, 7 pm and Sunday, October 19, 4 pm at St. Philip Neri . Tickets and more information are here.

Sacred Series for All

Folks in Salem and in Portland are fortunate to have two congregations who enjoy sharing their musical riches with the community. Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and St. Paul’s Episcopal welcome all to their regular services, of course, including evensong. But both present several concerts of varied music that you might enjoy. 

Trinity’s Rosales Organ concerts are always a special treat – Halloween is a howl – but you will note some special special choral offerings on their Music Series Calendar. Trinity Cathedral Choir and Portland Baroque Orchestra collaborate once again in March to present Dominico Scarlotti’s Stabat Mater and J. S. Bach Cantata 106. Beginning in October the Choir presents special choral concerts to benefit Trinity Choir’s summer 2026 tour to Durham Cathedral. And the Cathedral welcomes Singing Girls of Texas for a free concert on March 10. 

All of the details and ticket information on Trinity Episcopal Cathedral’s Music Series can be found here.

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You will be pleased to note that in addition to several keyboard recitals at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Salem the entire Handel Messiah is on their music series, in three different seasons. Part 1 is there for you at Christmas; Part II is in the spring and Part III closes St. Paul’s music series season in June. In February you can enjoy Sacred and Bluegrass music with The Severin Sisters. And make your reservations early for Oxford England’s Magdalen College Choir on a Salem tour-stop on April 12. Mark Williams, whom many of you know from Portland’s William Byrd Festival, conducts that special concert offering.

Handel, Gospel and sacred music in the Anglican tradition as in store for you on the St. Paul’s Episcopal Music Series this season. The entire Series calendar is here.

Resonance in Benson

Stand in the middle of the Rose City this fall and listen. Do you hear the music? That wonderful blend of local creativity, innovation, collaboration all serving the musical arts that are so important to the vitality of our community? Ah, there it is. Sounds Like Portland, right?

On October 24, Resonance Ensemble, one of the glistening threads in Portland’s colorful choral tapestry, honors these Portland sounds in a concert at the newly renovated Benson High School Auditorium, as partners in the three-week Oregon Symphony Sounds Like Portland Festival. This collaborative concert, wrote Resonance Director of Marketing and Operations Liz Bacon Brownson in recent email to OAW, is about “specifically celebrating some of the choral composers we love who live and work in Portland.” And they are getting a little help from some Portland friends.

On stage with Artistic Director Katherine FitzGibbon and the Resonance Ensemble musicians are local innovators Fear No Music and Bora Yoon. You’ll see them in ensemble with Resonance and in their own unique sets. And you will visit with a few of Resonance’s valued friends in creativity including Cecille Elliott, Caroline Shaw, Stacey Philipps, Sydney Guillaume and Renée Favand-See. Shaw’s Its Motion Keeps is on the program. Listen to it here.

In addition, said Brownson “we’re working with our partners (Portland Public Schools Visual and Performing Arts Team) to create engagement opportunities that connect students and the wider community with living composers, through conversations, workshops, and contextual materials that help audiences see how music is interwoven with our city’s cultural life.” Bet you’ll want to hear more about that as the season progresses. And you’ll want to hear more about Safe Harbor, Resonance’s upcoming album to be released this year. 

How exciting to see such a community-centered event at Benson Polytechnic High School, a school which for over one-hundred years has participated in Portland’s cultural advances and technological innovation (KQAC “Radio” started there) and now continues to serve its community in modern garb. And speaking of KQAC, you can get a nice teaser about this Resonance concert on KQAC’s October 16 Thursdays @ Three broadcast. Bora Yoon will appear with Director FitzGibbon in that broadcast. Keep watch here for live-audience tickets for that show.

Join Resonance Ensemble, Fear No Music and Bora Yoon for the opening of RE’s Season 17, “The Sound of Us”, on Friday, October 24, 7:30 at Benson High School Auditorium. RE subscription ticket sales end this Friday; single tickets for the Benson concert will be available beginning September 17 right here. 

For more information about your Oregon Symphony’s entire three-week The Sounds Like Portland Festival, which begins October 18, watch this space. 

Supporting Choral Music on KQAC

It’s been nine months since the inception of the Roger O Doyle Choral Series on KQAC’s ever popular Thursdays @ Three. I wonder if on-air host Christa Wessel knew that the requests from choral groups to perform in the exquisite new Irving Levin performance studio would come pouring in. Twelve choral performances have already been featured and five more are scheduled this fall. They are Oregon Repertory Singers (10/8); In Medio (10/23); Portland State Chamber Choir (11/13); Portland Symphonic Girlchoir (12/4) and Oregon Repertory Singers Youth Choir (12/11). Well done choirs, and well done Thursdays @ Three for believing in the powerful message of voices raised in song. To attend a live performance watch for tickets here. It’s a blast.

Intimate singing

A round of applause for Friends of Chamber Music for including choral music in their series. The SOLD OUT October 15 VOCES8 concert is a clear indication that FOCM values our choral-loving community. But keep that applause going for the student-focused VOCES8 outreach event FOCM is sponsoring at Willamette University in the late morning of October 14. VOCES8 singers will work with students from WU Chamber Choir, North Salem High School and Willam8tte, Willamette University’s a cappella ensemble. The event is free and open to the public. 

VOCES8 is celebrating their twentieth season. In addition to their highly lauded international performances and recordings VOCES8 has put their passion for music education into practice. Their VOCES8 Foundation “Music for All” program “reaches up to 40,000 people annually” (FOCM media). You are invited to learn more about the singers and their education initiatives at “Up Close with VOCES8,” a limited-seating concert and reception event being offered by FOCM on the evening of October 14. 

All are welcome to attend the special Willamette University workshop with choral students from WU and North Salem High school on Tuesday, October 14, 11:20 am at Hudson Concert Hall in Willamette’s Rogers Music Center. The evening “Up Close” concert/reception on October 14 is 7:30 at Tufenkian Showroom, Portland. Tickets and more information about that can be found here.

Viva Vocal Arts

Fall is the season for Vivaldi says Northwest Vocal Arts in their upcoming October 19 concert, “Autumn Celebration.” And Vivaldi’s Gloria RV 589, one of our favorites, is probably the choral work we know best by this prolific Italian Baroque composer who wrote a substantial number of sacred choral works. Not only is the Gloria a compact little baroque gem but it is accessible to a wide range of choral musicianship and vocal capability. And that is exactly just what NWVA is going for. Half of their 32-member Chamber Choir – aspiring choral singers in high school and college – sing alongside the adult choral professionals. And they are paid for their artistry, just like the pros. 

Scott Tuomi, newly retired Director of Choral Activities and now Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at Pacific University, is on the Board of Northwest Vocal Arts. “What I love about this model is it is built on mentorship on every level,” said Tuomi in recent phone conversation with OAW. Tuomi lauded the opportunity for newly graduated performance majors to “break in,” to meet professional singers, to get referrals. “But,” he said, his voice reflecting a certain awe, “there are high school singers, singing alongside the professionals, on the same literature and perhaps singing with an orchestra for the first time. The standard is not lowered for these students and they like to be held to that level.” Yes, awesome.

Also on the October program is Jake Runestad’s The Hope of Loving for chorus and string quartet, a multi-movement work built upon poetry tackling the mysteries of love. Listen to a bit of that here.

NWVA also offers a tuition-free youth chorus. Read more here about this unique multi-level choral organization now embarking on its second season and take a look rest of NWVA’s lineup including a two-concert weekend at Christmas and NWVA’s yearly initiative, “Cordillera: Range of the Americas” in March. 

Join NW Vocal Arts on Sunday, October 19, 2025, 3:00 PM at Rose City Park Methodist Church, Portland. Tickets and more information are here. 

More than a revolving red-striped pole

Barbershop choruses love to compete. Competitive singing in this wonderful close harmony genre began in 1939 with a standardized system for judging honed in the following decade. The criteria for excellence in three categories – Singing, Musicality and Performance – is incredibly rigorous. So on September 27 when the women of medal winners Oregon Spirit Chorus and their director Kathy Scheel offer a workshop on refining technique and boosting confidence in Barbershop singing you can count on a high standard of scholarship. Featured guest presenter is Lea Beverley, certified BHS Expression judge. Find out more about Oregon Spirit – their award-winning year 2024 and fun-loving Barbershop singing in general – in this Capital Communications interview. 

Regional and international contests are motivators. But singing in Oregon Spirit is – like so many choirs – about community, at home and in the Barbershop community that exists around the world. But the 70 members of OSC will enjoy sharing the home stage next January with award-winning quartet Speed of Sound and their hometown colleagues SenateAires, Salem’s 65-voice men’s Barbershop choir now celebrating their 71st year of singing.

Oregon Spirit Chorus “She Sings” workshop is on Saturday, September 27, from 9-5 at Chemeketa Community College. Registration, open only until September 20, is here. Their home concert “Harmonies of Light” will be January 24 at Willamette University. More information about that will be forthcoming.

Connections

Singing is service

Marianna Thielen, Artistic Director of Oregon Symphony’s Lullaby Project, wants to share another community service project in which music, and other arts, are giving solace to in-home care patients of “Housecall Providers.” Thielen has seen firsthand how personal connection through music can bring comfort to the patients and their families. On October 9 at the Old Church Concert Hall you can hear and see some of these creative offerings. “Works of Heart, a showcase of original artwork created through one-on-one collaborations between local artists and our patients. These deeply personal pieces – ranging from song and painting to dance and video – are inspired by patients’ life stories, dreams, and reflections, and beautifully honor the lives we serve” (Housecall Providers website).

Join Marianna Thielen and other local artists for “Works of Heart” in concert on Thursday, October 9, 4-6:30 at The Old Church Concert Hall. For more details and tickets visit Housecall Provider’s website here.