This choral preview covers just 48 hours. Friday night through Sunday this first weekend in May is jam-packed with choral happenings that partner local choirs with choirs from afar, adult singers with students and barbershop with Gustav Holst. You can hear similar liturgical works centuries apart placed side by side and join choirs from a church and temple as they sail together into the stratosphere. Our musical world is so connected.

And on May 2 it is literally CONNECTED that starts the clock on sensational singing. Here we go!

Get CONNECTED

Third time is the charm. Actually it’s magical, say past participants of the first two CONNECTED concert events at Portland’s Jefferson High School. On May 2, the curtain, and greater Portland community, will be raised once again through the communal power of the arts: it’s CONNECTED the Trilogy.

Since arriving in Portland four years ago, native Marylander Joshua Sommerville has been an advocate and catalyst for community singing. He gives credit for his energetic embodiment of the radiant joy of music to his Towson University mentor the late Karen Kennedy and brings it all to classrooms at Jefferson High and Portland Waldorf School–and to this welcoming event called CONNECTED.

Alissa Deeter, Artistic Director of Portland Symphonic Choir said, in recent email to OAW, she believes the powerful event – a living expression of Joshua’s ethos – reaches beyond the auditorium: 

“Joshua is an unapologetic force, harnessing the power of music to challenge stereotypes, bridge divided communities, and break the cycle of separation that holds us back. CONNECTED is more than just a concert, [it is] a vibrant collision of artistic worlds that will leave you inspired to think about a collective future rather than a divided present.”

“The title itself says it all,” said Sommerville’s Jefferson colleague, Band Director David Hester, speaking recently with OAW about last year’s event. “It felt wholesome. When I left there I felt inspired, I felt complete.” Connect with Hester, now in his second year at Jefferson, at this year’s CONNECTED event. 

Folks, the number of participating solo artists, community choirs, church choirs, school choirs, dancers, handbell ringers – including Jefferson’s own Choir and the Jefferson Dancers – is astounding. Just take a look at the poster listing the performing participants. 

Alyssa Grass, High School Office Administrator at Portland Waldorf School where Sommerville teaches music, spoke with OAW about CONNECTED 2024 in which PWS’s 4^th through 12^th graders participated. “One of the most astonishing parts of the experience is the breadth and depth of age, experience, background. You see individuals from ages 10 through 70 in the expression of art, music coming from the stage, from the audience. It is a joyous occasion for everyone to participate in.” Grass also reflected on the contrast between a concert in which a group performs on an elevated stage, disconnected from the audience and CONNECTED where it seems, she said, “you are in the middle of this ocean of beautiful music.”

Sommerville doesn’t just light up the world in Portland. He recently returned from his second workshop in Berlin, teaching about African American spirituals and communal singing. More European musical travels are in his future. But for now, connect with Sommerville and the choirs and the soloists and the dancers and the bell ringers – be as one with our whole beautiful community at CONNECTED. 

CONNECTED the Trilogy, presented on Friday, May 2, is free and open to the public. Doors open at 6:30 (get there early!) for the 7 pm community event at Jefferson High School Auditorium. 

Stars in the Choral World

Ēriks Ešenvalds composed Stars, for choir and tuned water glasses, in 2011. In 2012, thanks to Oregon Repertory Singers, the then 35-year-old Latvian composer made his first professional trip to the US and stars have been in the firmament ever since. On May 3 and 4 Portland and Seattle choral musicians and the Latvian community will turn out to celebrate the composer’s return with singing and food and lots and lots of water glasses. Come and participate in this connection of culture, poetry and music. Ešenvalds has such a unique choral voice.

In ORS media notes, Artistic Director Ethan Sperry states “Ešenvalds’s expanded tonality, though it includes dissonant tones, sounds to me even more consonant than major and minor, something like the next dimension of construction. Perhaps these are the harmonies of the Fibonacci sequence, the sounds of the spiral or the way in which nature orders itself that remains beyond complete human comprehension.” 

Ešenvalds won’t be coming directly from his home. He is in the US for a series of residencies, public seminars and a premiere of his latest choral/orchestral work. Read more about that here. ORS will perform Ešenvald’s Seneca’s Zodiac, for SSSAAATTTBBB, water-tuned glasses, bass drum, rain tree, tibetan bowls, comb-and-paper, prepared piano. Zowie! Other Ešenvalds pieces on the program are Paradisum and Naming the Rain, a collaboration between emeritus Oregon Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen and the composer. Petersen will be in attendance and will read her poetry prior to the performance. 

Listen to Ešenvalds’s Paradisum here. 

Sperry’s arrangement of a Latvian folk song, Divi Sirmi Kumelini; Stacey Philipps’s Love, Tender, Breathing, Fragrant; and Naomi LaViolette’s Sunrise will also be performed.

And where are the stars you are asking? They will be illuminated both nights by ORS and special guest singers from the Seattle area. Welcome The Concord Chamber Choir, Giselle Wyers, conductor (on Saturday) and The Seattle Latvian Choir, Egija Claire, conductor (on Sunday). You will be surrounded by stars.

Earlier on Sunday, May 4, the Oregon Latvian Society–partners with ORS in this performance weekend–invites you to meet and enjoy brunch with their native son and hear a special performance by The Seattle Latvian Choir. Get more information and register for the brunch, for suggested donation, here. 

Oregon Repertory Singers will be featured performers on the May 1 KQAC Thursdays @ Three as part of the Roger O. Doyle Choral Series. Tune in to 89.9 FM or stream in here. You can also catch the performance in the archives for two weeks.

Oregon Repertory Singers presents “Heavens Full of Stars: the music of Ēriks Ešenvalds on Saturday, May 3 and Sunday, May 4, both concerts at 4pm at First United Methodist Church, Portland. Tickets for the concert and more information are here. The Latvian Society brunch is at 11 am. Register here.

Barbershop Music Supports Youth

Hillsboro is hopping with upcoming musical performances. On May 2 hear PDX Voices and Vocal Summit, two award-winning Barbershop ensembles from the Portland Chapter of Barbershop Harmony Society, in “Barbershop for All.” But in addition to gifting your ears with that wonderful close harmony a portion of the concert proceeds will offer support for Hillsboro’s STAGES Performing Arts Youth Academy. Just in time for the young STAGES musical artists who will begin a run of Spongebob The Musical on May 9. Singing in service – bravo Barbershoppers – and singing for good wholesome fun! 

“Barbershop for All” is presented Friday, May 2, 7:30 at the Walters Cultural Arts Center, downtown Hillsboro. Tickets are here. And take the plunge with Spongebob The Musical, beginning Friday, May 9 – May 25, at the Hillsboro Artists Regional Theater (HART). Dates, times and tickets at here. Both venues are conveniently near a MAX Red Line stop.

And speaking of Barbershop Harmony, on May 4 Sunnyside Symphony is performing Gustav Holst’s The Planets with Pride of Portland Women’s Barbershop floating in on the eighth planet. This is a first for both organizations and Neptune himself might be feeling the buzz about this artistic connection. 

“We are taking part in an unprecedented collaboration with the Sunnyside symphony orchestra,” wrote Pride of Portland conductor Drew Osterhout in recent email to OAW. “They will be performing Gustav Holst’s The Planets Suite, and POP, along with some other friends from our community, will be providing the haunting choral voices that conclude the final movement. It’s going to be a fabulous show!”

All SSO performances are free. And it will be livestreamed! 

Enjoy The Planets with Sunnyside Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jonathon DeBruyn, with Pride of Portland on Sunday, May 4, 4 pm at Sunnyside Seventh Day Adventist Church. More information, including the live stream link, is here.

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Trinity Episcopal Church Choir and Kol Echad (With One Voice) Temple Beth Israel Choir want to be with you in full force on May 4 because – duh! – it’s “Star Wars” Sunday as in “May the 4^th be ….” okay, you get it. The neighboring Portland congregational choirs join forces to bring you “Celestial Music of the Stars,” offered in the beautiful Byzantine style temple. The choirs, guided by Beth Israel’s Cantor Ida Mae Cahana and Trinity’s Canon of Music Katie Webb, will weave their heavenly music between readings by Rabbi Michael Cahana. It’s music and spoken word “to encounter the mystery & beauty of the spirit” (Trinity website).

“Celestial Music of the Stars” is presented on Sunday, May 4 at 5 pm at Congregation Beth Israel. All are welcome. For more information click here. 

Side By Side

Two choirs place liturgically-influenced works of centuries ago and of today side by side. In Salem on May 3 and 4, Festival Chorale Oregon presents two interpretations of Luke 1:46-55, the “Song of Mary” – the Magnificat. On the same dates, fifty-five miles to the north, the Vancouver Master Chorale invites you to hear two Masses – one in time of European upheaval and one rooted in 20^th century blues.

In Salem

Choral music lovers, you could probably name J. S. Bach’s Magnificat in five measures. And you could guess the composer of the another Magnificat in one page cause, well, nobody else sounds like John Rutter. Festival Chorale Oregon offers you both in one magnificent concert.

In Rutter’s Magnificat, premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1990, you will recognize the British composer’s lilting, energetic, rhythmic voice. It’s a perfect fit for community choral writing – don’t you think? In contrast to Bach’s introspective setting of the canticle in which Mary exalts God, Rutter celebrates the Blessed Mother herself, her steadfast faith and joy. FCO soloists in this concert are sopranos Nicole Peldyak and Emily Evelyn Way; mezzo, Hannah Penn; tenor, Les Green; and bass, Brett Peldyak. Way will sing the singular soprano role in the Rutter.

Listen here to Bach’s and Rutter’s “Esurientes” movements, each a jewel. Enjoy the similarities and differences.

Festival Chorale Oregon performs the “Magnificent Magnificats” of Bach and Rutter at 4 pm on Saturday, May 3, at Salem First Presbyterian Church. Tickets and information here.

In Vancouver 

Times were troubled when Franz Joseph Haydn was composing one of six masses written in the late 1790s for the Esterházys. Haydn’s almost superhuman composing output was winding down, but Napoleon Bonaparte was winding up and Haydn’s 1978 Mass was titled Missa de Angustiis, anxiety well-befitting the mood. In that same year word came that British Admiral Nelson had defeated Napoleon’s forces who were attempting to invade Egypt and create a pathway to British India (see the Battle of the Nile). Here ends the real history but conjecture suggests that sometime between the first performance of the Mass and a visit by Nelson to the Esterházy Palace, where the Mass was performed, the Lord Admiral’s name was glued into place. Learn a little more about all that here.

When Vancouver Master Chorale performs the Lord Nelson Mass for choir, SATB soloists and orchestra on May 3 and 4 you will hear why the 50-ish minute work is one of Haydn’s more beloved. It is vibrant, forceful and without woodwinds – Prince Nickolas was cost-cutting because of the war – so it is said to have a rousing military feel. See what you think. VMC’s four soloists are, in SATB order: Sara Mayne; Hailey Sorrell; Ryan Allen; and Gennadiy Tsybikov.

But you will enjoy another Mass on this “From Haydn to Basin Street” concert. From classical to contemporary. When the choir was finalizing the program, said Artistic Director Philip Denton, he asked around about who the right artist might be for Will Todd’s Mass in Blue. One name kept coming up – Madeline Ross; and that’s who will be performing the eclectic and expansive soprano role. 

Ross recently communicated by email with OAW about the 2003 work. “The Mass in Blue is a unique piece for the vocal soloist because it requires jazz and blues style vocals with the range of an operatic soprano! The music is beautiful and lively, exploring a full range of emotions and musical colors, from the soft, smokey lounge singing of the Agnus Dei to the blasting high trumpet imitation in the Credo.” Ross, who first performed the work with Oregon Chorale in May 2022, is looking forward to performing with VMC on the work she says is “a really fun challenge to sing and is constantly keeping me on my toes!” 

Want to appreciate them side by side? Listen here to the Todd and Haydn “Glorias”. 

For Artistic Director Philip Denton the dual Masses concert will be remembered as a special occasion for himself and for VMC. This is Denton’s official inaugural concert after the retirement of longtime VMC Artistic Director Jana Hart. But Denton is hardly new to the choir or to the Vancouver community. He has been teaching music for 19 years, is the choral director at Vancouver’s Skyview High and Alki Middle Schools and has sung in the VMC – and soloed several times – over 15 years. Tom Paulu, VMC’s Vice President of marketing, has written a more detailed bio of the new VMC conductor.

Denton is acquainted with the Haydn Mass but the Mass in Blue offers an exciting new challenge for him and whole organization. But if you know VMC you know this choir is game for anything. Denton is looking forward to continuing VMC’s reputation for varied literature and to including music of underrepresented composers and cultures.

Haydn’s Lord Nelson and Will Todd’s Mass in Blue will be performed by Vancouver Master Chorale on Saturday, May 3 at 7 pm and Sunday, May 4 at 3 pm, both concerts at First Presbyterian Church, Vancouver. Tickets and details are here.

ISing Choir is Outta Here

Engineers who sing. That was the membership of the Intel-based choir when Steven Galván took over the leadership of the choir in 2005. In that same year the choir embarked on a singing tour to Spain, came home con excitation and became a choral home for singers in and around Beaverton. The choir believes in and models singing in service of community. Over their twenty years they have raised nearly a half million dollars for worthy causes. This season Ising performs in support of Friends of Pimpollo.

The choir has enjoyed several tours. “We have toured internationally to England, Germany, Japan, France and we were supposed to go to Italy during the pandemic,” Galván is quoted in a 2024 Beaverton Valley Times interview (read the entire article here). That Italian tour program, the first choral concert in the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in March 2022 (billed tongue-in-cheek as “Stuck in the Americas”) is now offered as “Out of the Americas” on May 2, 3 and 4. Yup, the choir is finally on their way, leaving later this month on a 20^th Anniversary concert return tour which covers suburban Madrid, Seville, Valencia and Barcelona. This home concert includes music by Ernani Aquiar and Antonio de Salazar, Christopher Tin’s Wild Swans and Beaverton native Morten Lauridsen’s Sure on this Shining Night.

Join ISing Choir in their send-off concert, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, May 2, 3 (7:30) and 4, (3 pm) at Cedar Hills United Congregational Church, Beaverton. Tickets and more information are here.

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Portland State University Rose and Thorn Choirs present “Horizons,” Peter Freeman and Ian Timmons conductors. “With a variety of musical genres, this concert will include songs about identity, evolution, and vision from an array of time periods and genres” (PSU website).

Head for the “Horizons” concert featuring two choirs of Portland State University on Friday, May 2 at 7:30 at St. Philip Neri Church. Tickets and more information are here.

Shape Note Singing in Portland

Portland has a Sacred Harp Society and on May 3 and 4 they invite you to come and sing. That’s it…just come and sing and be embraced by the music and power of community in song. It’s from 9:30 to 3 pm both days – a Double All-Day Shapenote Singing event. Here’s what Portland Sacred Harp says about this weekend of song:

“Shapenote singing is a 200-year-old American folk tradition of a cappella, four-part harmony community singing. The Sacred Harp and The Christian Harmony are the names of two tunebooks which singers use. “Sacred Harp” refers to the human voice (there are no harps or other instruments involved in this music). People from all walks of life and various corners of the globe come together to make raucous, exuberant music. This community music-making is fun and social, and there is no audience other than the singers themselves. All levels are welcome, including those with no music background.”

This video will provide a taste of this special communal singing. 

But PSH also invites you to learn more about this “primal sound and social approach to singing” (PSH media) by attending a singing school led by Rosie Sokolov on Friday, May 2. The entire schedule for the free two-day convention – with meal, childcare and special covid related protocols – can be found at this link. But here are the basic details:

“Double All-Day Shapenote Singing” begins on May 3, 9:30-3 (register at 9), continues on Sunday, May 4, 9:30-3, with 12-1 potlucks both days, at The Laurelhurst Club, Portland. The “Singing School” on May 2 begins at 7 pm at Local 99 Musician’s Union Hall, Portland. 

Research, Education and Performance

“Musicking” at the University of Oregon. It’s been going on for ten years. Have you heard of it? Well, you’ve heard of the U of O where Oregon Bach Festival began nigh unto 55 plus years ago (lots more about that coming up soon). But perhaps, if you’ve even heard of Musicking Festival, you’ve thought of it as more the purview of academicians than the public. But we are Oregon music lovers! We “fear no music” (hmmm…catchy phrase that) and we embrace the new and, in the case of Musicking, the old – through research, education and performance – made new. Musicking is there for all. And especially there this year for vocal ensemble singers because – woohoo – internationally celebrated Cappella Artemisia is in residence. Here’s an introduction to this wonderful ensemble.

Musicking is now under the umbrella of the Oregon Bach Festival. Within the 2025 conference theme, “Resonant Alliances: Sound As Collaboration,” participants will be guided, reads the conference media release, in “considering performance practice studies through a cultural lens. How does collaboration enforce or subvert social hierarchies?” Okay, just threw it back to the academicians, didn’t it. Here–let Cappella Artemisia’s founding director Candace Smith, who communicated with OAW recently from her home in Italy, explain some of what her lectures and keynote speech will cover.

“Our repertoire is specifically drawn from the music of Italian convents in the early modern period and features sacred works composed both by and for cloistered nuns. [While] convents offered these women an education and an outlet for artistic expression which would otherwise not have been available to them, forced monasticism was rampant and far too many women found themselves enclosed within the convent walls against their will. The arts, and particularly music, became their lifeline, connecting them to the world beyond the cloisters. I will discuss the many restrictions governing the lives and music of these women and honor those who succeeded in rising above them through their artistry, and especially their music.”

Cappella Artemisia vocal and instrumental artists and will engage in classroom lectures and workshops with U of O Choirs and choral literature students. As a complement to Cappella Artemisia’s residency, John K. Cox, Visiting Professor of Music at Lewis & Clark College and founder of Portland’s new Rose City Renaissance, will participate in panel discussion and present his research on music within and beyond the walls of convent S. Lucia in Selci, Italy. But the Musicking Festival is more than one period and genre of music. Take a look at the conference booklet available online right here.

There’s something, however, you will not find in the booklet: information on ticket purchase and registration. That’s because “thanks to the generosity of our donors” says OBF, every event is free and preregistration is not required. Music for all.

The 2025 Musicking Conference at University of Oregon runs Tuesday, May 6 through Friday, May 9^th. Lectures and concerts are held in several locations on campus. Consult the booklet for dates, times and location. 

Later this month

That’s it for the musical multitudes in the first weekend in the merry month of May. There are more concerts later this month. But here’s a look ahead at season-ending concerts coming up for some of our younger singers.

Hear the Portland Symphonic Girlchoir at the May 2 CONNECTED the Trilogy concert at Jefferson High (see above). But their season ending “Showcase” concert will be performed on Saturday, May 17, 2 pm at Zion Lutheran Church, Portland. More information and tickets here.

Oregon Repertory Singers Youth Choir’s final concert for 5-12^th grade singers will take place on Saturday, May 17, at 1 pm at First United Methodist Church. More information and tickets will soon be found here.

The “Essence of the Soul” is Pacific Youth Choir’s May 18 season-ending concert theme. The music they will perform “delves into the heart of the human experience, weaving together themes of aspiration, self-discovery, and interconnectedness” (PYC media). It’s a day of music for the young singers, presented in two segments. K-8 singers perform at 2 pm; High School and Chamber Singers perform at 5. And it all takes place at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Portland. Tickets and more information here.

Connections

In planning to give a shout out to church choir directors throughout our region a random story popped into my feed (as stories are wont to do). It gave me pause and a smile and it might do the same for you. 

The news comes from Mitchell, South Dakota, population maybe upwards of 20,000; site of the World’s Only Corn Palace. And it is also where a recent Sunday was proclaimed, by mayoral declaration, Wayne Klinger Day. Why? Because Wayne Klinger, choir director of the First Reformed Church of Mitchell, is retiring – after fifty-six years!

Mr. Klinger is 83 and says the physical demands of the job have helped prompt his decision. But he will continue to sing. Of course, he will. And long may he do so. Congratulations and thank you, Wayne Klinger. Here’s the whole story. 

And to the many church choir directors regularly wading through music, picking the right pieces for the liturgical day or sermon topic, and constantly keeping an ear to the pews for any new singers. Thank you for your service. Thanks for the singing.