
In our last choral preview we were excited to announce the formation of two new choirs in the Portland metro, Portland Sage Singers and Northwest Vocal Arts. But we’ve learned that the choral landscape is brighter still as another new SATB choir, A Notion, A Scream, has taken flight.
“We hoped that through word of mouth we might get 20-40 singers” said Julie Earnest, Board President and singer in the newly formed choir A Notion, A Scream. But “at our first rehearsal in October, 45 people walked through the doors and now we are 65.”
In that recent telephone conversation with OAW Earnest chuckled about the joyful scramble to purchase more music for the SATB voices and the realization that more risers would be needed for their first concert in early April. Then she spoke of how, in our post-pandemic world, folks seem eager to gather and to engage in the universal need to sing.
In a thriving choral community like ours, singers can find a choral home whose mission nurtures not only their artistic needs but their personal convictions. “The mission of A Notion, A Scream is, in large part, to sing and promote living composers,” said Earnest. True to that commitment all of the repertoire in the choir’s inaugural concert is created by living composers, including the premiere of a work by Seattle-based composer Andrew Jacobson.
“We do our part to contribute to the perpetuation and survival of the choral form” wrote Artistic Director of A Notion, A Scream DeReau K. Farrar in his opening comments to his new singers. Audiences have enjoyed Farrar’s artistry and leadership in several recent music performances around Portland. Farrar sings with Resonance Ensemble and, in 2024, was Musical Director for Portland Opera’s The Juliet Letters and Portland Center Stage’s Sweeney Todd. Farrar also directs Bridging Voices, a youth chorus for LGBTQ+ and allied youth whose recent concert was a joyous, standing-room-only event.
It was Farrar, said Earnest, who suggested the unique, ear-catching name for the choir. Non-traditional – yup. Enigmatic – compellingly so. The meaning – that may be what the music itself reveals when you experience the sound and spirit of this new choral community.
There will be more information to come about their April inaugural concert. If you are interested in singing in A Notion, A Scream or for more information, visit the choir website here.
Bach, A Bowl and Brass
Bach Cantata Choir has a concert coming up on February 9. Of course they do! It’s Super Bowl Sunday. But on that same day in 1727, the assumed premiere date of Bach Cantata BWV 84 Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Glücke (I am content with my fortunes), the work was offered at St. Thomaskirche to signal the beginning of pre-Lent which lasts three weeks and culminates with Shrove Tuesday, also known as Mardi Gras. And what is the unofficial “US City of Mardi Gras”–New Orleans, the site of this year’s Super Bowl. Ha, tidy little roundabout, that.
Looks like a B team (Buffalo Bills) might end up in the Championship; we’ll see, there’s one more playoff weekend to go. But you’ll have four Bs to look forward to on this BCC program. Joining Bach are Cesare Bendinelli, Anton Bruckner and Heinrich Franz Biber. If you are a violinist, you know Biber’s innovative works for violin (and if you can play them, bravo) but he also composed some impressive sacred choral works. This Super Bach concert centerpiece is Biber’s Missa Sancta Henrici for five-voice choir and very brassy orchestra (4 trumpets, 3 trombones). And “hey,” wrote BCC Artistic Director Ralph Nelson in recent email to OAW, “if you’ve got three trombones, why not do this amazing motet of Bruckner as well?” He’s referring to one of the late “Vienna” motets, Ecce Sacerdos, from the same period as the a cappella Locus Iste and Virga Jesse. It was heard by millions viewing the 2023 Coronation of King Charles III; listen to that coronation Ecce Sacerdos here.
The Bendinelli piece, Sonata #336, is yet another brass blowout. But the Bach cantata mentioned above, BWV 84, is a glorious opportunity to hear Portland soprano Vakarė Petroliūnaitė in one of Bach’s “solo” cantatas (aria, recit, aria, recit, chorale). Listen to Cantata 84’s first movement here.
Alan Juza will perform the expansive oboe role, with Mary Rowell on principal violin and the entire excellent instrumental and choral forces always amassed for these concerts.
So mix the Chex and scoop the skins in the morning, throw those meatballs in the crock pot and head out to Rose City Park Presbyterian Church for some beautiful music beginning at 2 pm. The free concert will end at 3:15. (And Super Bowl LIX begins at 3:30).
Rolicking Renaissance
Cantores in Ecclesia, directed by Blake Applegate, heads south on February 19 to appear on Willamette University’s Grace Goudy Distinguished Artist Series. Cantores, in residence at Holy Rosary Parish Portland, sings at mass at St. Agatha’s Catholic Church and serves as the resident choir of the William Byrd Festival (full bio here). On this community stage the choir will sing the music of Josquin des Prez. If you don’t know Josquin get ready for some of the finest choral music written during the Renaissance…period. Interspersed throughout the program will be commentary by Renaissance scholar Kerry McCarthy who peppers her pedagogical presentations with portraits of the people, the times in which they lived and, always, the music.
Josquin’s El Grillo is probably his most well-known secular work. When you hear it on the program appreciate that the darling ditty, a frottola, was the predecessor to the emotive madrigal and the French chanson. Listen to El Grillo here.
Cantores in Ecclesia sings on Wednesday, February 19 at 7:30 at Hudson Hall, Willamette University, Salem. Tickets and information are here.
Grace and Grandeur
The Oregon Symphony Orchestra welcomes choral music lovers to the stage and audience on two consecutive weekends.
On a February 22-24, in collaboration with Oregon Repertory Singers, David Danzmayr conducts Bach and Mendelssohn which, as some of you music history buffs know, is an appropriate coupling. The entire concert is two works: J. S. Bach’s Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068, is only 20-ish minutes, but Felix Mendelssohn’s 1840 Lobgesang (Hymn of Praise) is a whopping 11-movement, three soloist, 70-ish minute “symphony cantata” (Mendelssohn’s words).
Interestingly, the Lobgesang premiered at Bach’s St. Thomaskirche in Leipzig. But that physical coincidence is only one of the connections Mendelssohn had to Bach. The musical wunderkind (he wrote the Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture at 17!) was introduced to Bach’s music early in life and at age 20 not only “reworked” Bach’s St. Matthew to be more accessible (read more here about that) but conducted a performance of the grand passion, igniting a renewed interest in Bach’s works. In his own compositions, Mendelssohn often evoked the great Baroque composer in design and style while still embracing contemporary innovations and forward vision until his untimely death at age 38.
Oregon Repertory Singers cracked the Lobgesang choral scores a couple of weeks ago. “We asked who had sung the work before,” said ORS’s director Ethan Sperry. Out of 120 singers, one hand went up. But the choir knows Mendelssohn oratorio; their 40th Anniversary (2014) Elijah performance may have been the last time that massive Mendelssohn oratorio was heard in the Metro.
Lobgesang is an Oregon Symphony performance premiere. What motivated OSO conductor Danzmayr to choose this scarcely performed choral/orchestral work? He’ll provide that answer in performance as he leads soprano soloists Ellie Dehn and Deanna Breiwick; tenor John Matthew Myers, Oregon Repertory Singers and your Oregon Symphony.
Hear “Grace and Grandeur” on Friday, February 22 and Saturday, February 23 at 7:30 and Sunday, February 24, 2 pm at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Tickets and program notes can be found here.
Click, Track, Mozart
The week after the Lobgesang the OSO and Portland Symphonic Choir will be gearing up to provide the mega-award-winning music for Amadeus as the film plays on the colossal big screen behind. While Lobgesang will be Danzmayr’s interpretation, the live-sync Amadeus performance requires an additional skill-set on the podium. Conductor Richard Kaufman knows that the moment he gives a downbeat he’s on the clock.
To enhance what will be a wonderful movie and live-music experience by our excellent Portland musicians take a moment to listen to conductor Kaufman describe the process of conducting to click-track. Imagine faintly hearing through earphones the original film score and soloists, overlaid with the click track which must be precisely followed, while giving cues to live forces. But, Kaufman, who is considered one of the best in the business on the live-sync podium, has conducted many Amadeus performances; it will be a treat to watch him at work with our artists. Mozart, movie, magic.
Enjoy Amadeus in it’s 40th Anniversary year on the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall Stage on Thursday, February 27 and Friday, February 28, both performances 7:30. Tickets can be purchased here.
Stories of Heartbreak and Hope
Robert Cohen’s Alzheimer’s Stories was commissioned to tell the real story of living with Alzheimer’s Disease. The Susquehanna Valley Chorale in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania premiered the choral/instrumental composition – giving voice to those stories – in 2009. Corvallis Repertory Singers presents Alzheimer’s Stories on February 28.
“I, like many conductors, am drawn to works that speak to our lives in a real way” wrote CRS Artistic Director Steven Zielke in recent email to OAW. Zielke first heard the work at the 2019 American Choral Directorsn National Conference in Kansas City. Just a few years later he would watch as his father cared for his mother who began losing herself, her life, to dementia. “I watched my father struggle to care for her and the toll it took on him. Mom would start singing in the middle of the night. So they would sing together until she fell asleep.”
“Stories” is the title of Movement Two of Cohen’s three-movement work. In 2009, choir and community members were invited to share their stories, as Zielke has shared his, and the text is composed of selections from those responses. Listen to Movement 2 here.
Movement one, “The Numbers”, tells of the 1901 discovery of the disease, including numbers of individuals currently afflicted and future predictions. Current studies on neurodegenerative diseases suggest that those “numbers” continue to be a serious world concern. Movement Three, “For the Caregivers”, attempts to end with hope and CRS’s second half of the concert embraces that hopeful theme.
Zielke recalls that the 2019 ACDA performance of Alzheimer’s Stories was paired with Andre Thomas’s Mass: A Celebration of Love and Joy. “The connection made sense to me. The harsh realities of life and the nature of the human journey need joy and celebration.” But for this concert Zielke has reached back 45 years, to the work that was Thomas’s inspiration in writing his Mass – Robert Ray’s 1979 Gospel Mass.
Ray, who died in 2022, was well-loved as founder and director of the St. Louis Symphony IN UNISON choir, an ensemble that focuses on performance and preservation of music from the African diaspora. But Ray began his career at University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. For twelve years he was a string department accompanist-coach but in the late 70s he organized the Black Student Chorus on that campus. It was for that ensemble that he was encouraged to write an “experimental work.” Ray did so, over an inspired two-week period, and Gospel Mass was premiered. He believed it would be a one-time performance, but the work flew into the voices of choirs around the world. It is performed by CRS in celebration of life.
Join Corvallis Repertory Singers in a delicate balance of heartbreak and struggle, joy and celebration on Sunday, February 23, 3 pm at Detrick Concert Hall, PRAx, on the Oregon State Campus. Tickets and more information here.
Friends in Music Education
In true Chaucerian Rooster style, Chanticleer vocal ensemble makes its annual strut through Portland. In this Friends of Chamber Music tour-stop concert Chanticleer will not only regale us with their choral expertise and engaging stage presence on February 21 but they are also going to mentor young choral singers from five Portland youth choirs the following day. Made possible by generous Portland-area donors Carole Alexander, Dawn Hayami and Jerry Bobbe, the full-day workshop will offer breakout sessions in all voices and on various choral performance topics and give our student musicians a close-up look at the professional world of music-making.
The FOCM/Chanticleer Youth Outreach daytime event is closed to the public, but you are invited to attend the free February 22 evening event at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral at 7 pm.
Grab the few seats that are still available for Chanticleer on Friday, February 21, 7:30 pm concert at Kaul Auditorium, Reed Campus. Program details and tickets are available here.
Great American Singing
Want to spend time with some of the great classics of music? Attend Choral Arts Ensemble’s “Pops! Great American Songbook” concert on March 1 and 2. If you were to compile your own list of great American songs, what tunes from the jazz, folk tune, country and big band categories would you include? Did you just think of “What’ll I Do” (Irving Berlin) or “Let’s Do it” (Cole Porter)? Eubie Blake’s “Love Will Find A Way”?
How about Patsy Cline’s “Crazy”? Or do you have a favorite movie stunner like “Moon River” (Mancini) or “Mrs. Robinson” (Simon and Garfunkel)? Cohen’s “Hallelujah”? These are just some of the great treasures from the vast canon of American songs you might hear on this CAE concert.
This choir has a long history of balancing classic choral and classic “pop” and the entertaining result is just so dang refreshing. These annual concerts are “audience favorites” because folks love them and the experience never grows old. Be prepared, however; you and your audience neighbors might break out in that great old revival song “How Can I Keep From Singing” when this concert gets underway. It’ll be a “GAS.”
Come join in the fun with Choral Arts Ensemble on Saturday, March 1, 7:30 pm and Sunday March 2, 3 pm at Rose City Park United Methodist Church. Tickets may be found here.
Connections
Calling all Eugene Concert Choir or Vocal Arts alumni! Whether you sang with the choirs for one concert or for two decades, you are invited to sing in the 50th Anniversary Reunion Choir on the March 9th Golden Celebration concert. Music to Movement 4 of the Brahms Requiem will be provided. To get more information and register to sing visit the ECC website here.
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