Wanderings

May choral concerts abound with wandering and reflective repertoire from choirs throughout Oregon. Small choirs, large choirs; professional and community – unique personalities every one. And all with stories to tell.

In remembrance

Fr. Ivan Moody’s Passion and Resurrection, with its unique use of bells, has been called a work that fills “the uncertain ground between liturgy and drama” (Grammaphone review). Cappella Romana once again teams up with the musicians of 45^th Parallel Universe to present this 80-minute oratorio on May 16, 17 and 18. But, to form the 40-voice ensemble a work of this magnitude deserves, CR is collaborating with another Portland ensemble, In Medio Choir. John Eisemann, Artistic Director of IM, wrote in email to OAW that “this is a great chance for our singers to dig into a style of music that is less familiar to us and our audience.” Cappella Romana Artistic Director Alexander Lingas will conduct. 

Noted British composer Ivan Moody died in January, 2024 at age 59. “These concerts are given in memory of Fr. Ivan, our beloved and much missed friend who wrote his longest choral work, The Akáthistos Hymn, for Cappella Romana” (CR website). Passion and Resurrection, a commissioned work finished in 1992, begins with the embodiment of God on earth, “Incarnation”:

Cappella Romana, In Medio and musicians of 45^th Parallel Universe join artistic forces for “Passion and Resurrection” in Seattle on Friday, May 16, 7:30 at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church; in Portland on Saturday, May 17, 7:30 at St. Mary’s Cathedral; and Sunday, May 18, 3 pm at Our Lady of the Lake, Lake Oswego. Tickets are available on Cappella Romana’s website here.

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On Sunday, May 25, you can join in the celebration of Ethan Sperry’s 15^th year as Portland State University’s Director of Choral Activities. Billed as the “largest group of PSU Chamber Choir Alumni ever assembled”–and that’s saying a lot considering the teachers, performers and lovers of choral music who come from PSU choirs each year–the program will include several of Sperry’s choral arrangements and favorite PSU Chamber Choir choral works.

The “Weaving Past and Present” celebration concert is on Sunday, May 25 at 4 pm at First United Methodist Church. Information and tickets are here.

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Earlier that same day is a celebration of the life of beloved PSU voice teacher, Portland and nationally known baritone and proud PSU alumnus David Jimerson who died on December 31, 2024. Jimerson soloed with Choral Arts ensemble, Portland Symphonic Choir and many other choirs and was a local favorite on the Portland Opera stage.

You are invited to join family, friends, former students and colleagues in a musical tribute in PSU’s Lincoln Recital Hall on Sunday, May 25, 11 am. Information is here.

Voices Honored

In May of 1942 an eleven-acre building near the Columbia River in Portland became a prison for approximately 3800 Japanese American men, women and children. They were housed in cubicles with straw cots on plank floors and viewed the world through barbed wire fences. Eighty-three years later at that same site, now the Portland Expo Center, the 10^th Annual Vanport Mosaic Festival culminates in “a ceremony, a reckoning and a refusal to let erased histories stary buried” (Vanport media). That ceremony is on June 1 and Resonance Ensemble will be there to raise voices in justice-centered storytelling through music. 

“Resonance Ensemble, conducted by Associate Conductor Shohei Kobayashi, brings its powerful, socially engaged choral voice to We Are Still Here” (Resonance media). You will hear works by Eric Tuan, Tōru Takemitsu, Ayanna Woods and Caroline Shaw. “It is critical,” says Kobayashi in a recent Resonance post, “that we grapple with and tell the truth about the connections between this history and our current struggles.” The concert program is posted here.

Listen to composer Eric Tuan – with his music in background – describing the inspiration for his work Tule Lake Sketches to be performed on this program:

In addition to the music of Resonance Ensemble you will experience a world premiere of On This Land by Kenji Bunch and the Portland Assembly Center Project’s unique blend of poetry, movement, and narratives devised by Chisao Hata in collaboration with actor and director Heath Hyun Houghton, amplifying the words and memories of Japanese Americans incarcerated at the historic Expo Center site.

Chamber Music Northwest and the Portland Japanese Garden also participate in the Mosaic Festival culmination weekend in their SOLD OUT “Lost Freedom: A Memory” event on May 31. Actor George Takei narrates his own family story of relocation and incarceration alongside the music of Kenji Bunch and Andy Akiho. Ah, but you can get an inside track on the music at this FREE open rehearsal (at which Mr. Takei will not be present). The two-week Vanport Mosaic Festival, which begins on May 18, is replete with exhibits, lectures, theater performances, tours and immersive memory activism experiences that amplify Oregon’s silenced histories. Check out the entire program here. 

Learn more about Vanport, Vanport Extension Center now Portland State University, Portland Temporary Detention Center and Nihonmachi in the Oregon Encyclopedia.

Resonance Ensemble, Kenji Bunch and Portland Assemble Center Project perform “We Are Still Here” at the Portland Expo Center on June 1 at 3 pm. Tickets and more information are here.

Wanderings and Findings

Radix Vocal Ensemble’s Artistic Director Amy Hunn wants you to imagine “setting off in the early morning half-light, full of excitement and anticipation – accompanied by 12th-century songs of pilgrimage from the Codex Calixtinus.” What a journey! With the whole Codex you would be fully armed for life: it’s five volumes, with accounts of miracles, sermons, the route to Santiago de Compostela and beautiful music. 

Radix brings the pilgrimage to the 21st century in “Waypoints and Wanderings” in which you will experience the wide-open spaces that draw you onward, twists and turns that test your resolve and anchors – the music – to which you can hold fast. Guest artists Dario Diaz on guitar and Kevin Deitz on cello and bass perform Joan Szymko’s Nada te turbe (Let nothing trouble you). Listen to it here:

Also programmed are Bob Chilcott’s Swansongs, Grayson Ives’s Psalm 18 setting The Sorrows of Death and a special cover of Paul Simon’s Loves Me Like a Rock. 

Join Radix for “Waypoints and Wanderings” on Saturday, May 17, 7 pm at Rose City Park Presbyterian Church. More information on the program and tickets can be found here.

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Southern Oregon Repertory Singers present “Cannons Into Bells,” their annual James M. Collier New Work Festival with repertoire that explores transformations. SORS composer-in-residence Jodi French’s premiere titular work “explores the tragic cycle of bells being melted into cannons during times of war, then changed back in times of peace” (SORS website).

Then experience the same pathway illuminated in the ancient Codex referenced by Radix Choir above–now known to the modern world as the Way of St. James–with British composer Jody Talbot’s stunning 17-part a cappella work Path of Miracles. 

The concert comes to a close with a piece that has entranced singers since 1967 when Samuel Barber added text to his beautiful 1936 Adagio for Strings to create Agnus Dei and audiences will exit to the words of e. e. cummings, as set by Dan Forrest, i thank You God for this amazing day.

Jodi French’s premiere, “Cannons Into Bells” and other transformative works will be performed on Saturday, May 24, 7:30 and Sunday, May 25, 2 pm at Southern Oregon Recital Hall, Ashland. SOU Emerita Professor Dr. Margaret Evans will present a pre-concert lecture one hour before each performance. Tickets and more details can be found here.

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And speaking of premieres, on May 17 hear a new work by Portland composer Stacey Philipps, composer-in-residence for Oregon Repertory Singers Youth Choir. Find You is based on texts by Portland poet and librettist A. Mimi Sei. “I’ve been a fan of her work for some time,” wrote Philipps in a recent email to OAW. “She also contributed poetry to my two books of Gathering Rounds, and it was a delight to work with her and her stirring poetry.” 

“The song is about being true to yourself, being flexible in the midst of turmoil and change, and identifying what you stand for,” Philipps continued. “With small motives layering to create a much larger sound, each part contributes to the sense that every little piece matters when creating music and when creating a community.”

Find You, written for SAB choir with double treble choruses and piano, is a co-commission of Oregon Repertory Singers Youth Choir and Columbia Choirs of Metropolitan Seattle. 

Oregon Repertory Singers Youth Choir’s 6-12 choir, with special guests 3-5 Singers, premieres Find You in “The Sky We Share: Songs of Connection, Flight and Hope” on Saturday, May 17, 1 pm at First United Methodist Church. More information and tickets here.

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The Bach Cantata Choir closes their year of discovery on May 18 with three Bach works: Bach Cantatas BWV 90 and BWV 150 and the Singet dem Herrn, Motet #1. Cantata 90’s title text, Es reißet euch ein schrecklich Ende (A horrible end will carry you off), is a bit of a downer – but the music isn’t. And BWV 150, Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich (For Thee, O Lord, I long) is unique in its predominance of chorus and mysterious in its composition date–although most historians agree it is a very early, maybe Bach’s earliest, church cantata. 

 

The concert opens, however, with another motet: Heinrich Schütz’s six-voice motet Die Himmer erzählen die Ehre Gottes (The Heavens are telling the Glory of God). It might be this Schütz alone that would draw you to this concert. Conducting students and choral lit wonks, listen to this rendering (score provided). How would you conduct the brief implied but non-delineated moments of triple meter? It’s like walking soberly down a lane but, every once in a while, doing a little jig.

But for those of you who enjoy the juxtaposition of world and music history, the Marche des Insurgentes by Madame (Anne-Louise) Brillon de Jouy, this season’s Discovery Series composer, will have you leaving with a real lilt in your step. Read more about this French composer and salonnière, who was called by her friend Benjamin Franklin “the ever-amiable Brillante,” here.

Bach Cantata Choir performs on Sunday, May 18 at 2 pm, Rose City Park Presbyterian Church. This BCC concert is free (donations are appreciated). More information here.

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On May 18 and 19 Resonate Choral Arts is offering “a collaborative concert uplifting the power of music to unite, inspire, and create lasting change. Audiences will experience a powerful program that spans songs from the civil rights movement to contemporary works by local artists. These pieces—some familiar, some fresh—will shine a spotlight on music’s role in both healing and mobilizing. Together, performers and attendees will raise their voices for beauty, justice, and belonging” (website).

These Resonate Choral Arts performances are benefits. The May 18, 2 pm program benefit is for Artists Mentorship Program, will include AMP students, and will be held at 16 NW Broadway. On May 19^th at 7:30 at Alberta Abbey the singers perform to support the Marie Equi Center. Tickets for the Abbey performance are here.

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“Science supports the benefits of singing with a group.” So says the Portland Peace Choir website where there is a whole page of resources on that topic. It is the reason this Choir exists and the reason why they will be sharing their voices and their positive energy in their Spring concert on May 17. What does it take to join this choir? “Your joy to rehearse every week.” What does it take to attend a concert of this non-audition choir. Show up…for “Love Is All You Need”. 

Portland Peace Choir sings for “for the sheer joy of singing.” And there’s a bake sale! The free concert is on Saturday, May 17, 7 pm at Rose City Park United Methodist Church. 

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Columbia Choir of Oregon is offering its Columbia County audiences some “Glorious Glorias.”

The choir will perform on Sunday, May 18, 5:30 at Christian Church of St. Helens. Visit their facebook page here for more information on tickets.

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“Love is in the Air” when Cantico Singers perform on May 17. “From flirtation to infatuation to heartbreak, we’ve all felt it: love! Witness the many forms that love takes in our lives through music from France, Cuba, Newfoundland, Slovenia, and Renaissance Italy (with some Simon & Garfunkel and a little jazz thrown in)” (Cantico media).

Of special note is T’amo Mia Vita (I Love you, my life) by Vittoria Aleotti, one of the earliest Renaissance women to have her music published. Then love will come in waves with Claude Debussy’s “Dieu! Qui la fait bon regarder” (Lord! How good to look on her) from Trois Chansons and Brandt and Haymes 1950’s hit That’s All given a sultry interpretation here by Sarah Vaughn.

Experience love in many forms with Cantico on Saturday, May 17, 7:30 at St. James Episcopal Church, Tigard. Tickets, including a livestream option, are here.

Good time Gibbons

John Cox loves to sing and he’s good at it. The founder and Artistic Director of Rose City Renaissance, Portland’s Community Collegium Musicum, Cox is a member of Grammy-nominated Skylark Ensemble. But locally you have heard his tenor voice in Portland Baroque Orchestra concerts and with Cappella Romana, seen him conduct Portland Phoenix Choir and perhaps heard him lecture as Visiting Professor of Music at Lewis and Clark College. 

But right now he is quite enthusiastic about inviting music lovers of all capabilities and abilities to an upcoming May 24th workshop on the First Book of Madrigals and Motets by Orlando Gibbons. Listen to Cox, as OAW did in recent phone interview, talk about how these Rose City Renaissance workshops are designed for folks who have never explored the “golden age” of choral singing:

“This is the opportunity for amateur musicians to play in the sandbox in an atmosphere that makes the music approachable by everyone. We won’t be studying it for religious reasons, more for historical styles and forms. Looking at it like we would a cathedral in the history of architecture.”

You could hear the Cox smile as he declared “no performance, just a good time.” Gibbons is a good time.

Bask for a moment in one piece from Gibbon’s “Book One”, the solo version of Now Each Flowery Bank of May. 

Rest assured, however, there will be some top-notch examples coming from the four or five professional musicians who will be on hand. Those singers, some of whom have studied Renaissance music extensively (as has Cox), will also participate in the Q and A.

Cox is also excited about collaborations with Portland Baroque Orchestra next season. His research on the works of Alessandro Melani is the foundation of Portland Baroque Orchestra’s debut of Vespers music written by Melani for the convent of Santa Lucia in Selci. And in further exciting news, this year’s PBO Messiah performance will mark the debut of a new addition to the PBO musical family, organized by Cox, Portland Baroque Voices. Cool.

Sign up for a good time with the music of Orland Gibbons as Rose City Renaissance presents a workshop on the iconic 400-year old set of great vocal music. The workshop is on Saturday, May 24 from 1:30-4:30 at Grace Episcopal Church, Portland. Registration and more information is here. 

Old friends unite

“Music is the glue that holds us all together. Music is the peace, the love, and the harmony that guides us” (Satori website). Satori Men’s Chorus will sing melodies from many corners of the musical world in “Together in Harmony” on May 31. Special guest Raymond Elliott, Satori’s Artistic Director from 1996-2003, will conduct. Elliott is founder and Artistic Director of Salem’s Confluence Willamette Valley LGBT Chorus, now celebrating it’s 25 season. Elliott has arranged some pieces especially for Satori; enjoy them on this family friendly concert.

Satori promises a night of fun and memories on Saturday, May 31, 7 pm at Unity of Portland. Tickets and information about the concert are here.

Choral Calendar

As always, take a look at Tom Hard’s PDX Choral Calendar for a preview of a surprisingly full June roster of concerts. And choirs, use the PDX Choral Calendar as a concert-scheduling resource for next season. Dates are already filling up. Whew, we sure do sing!