At the creation, how long did it take for humans to make vocal sounds together in joy? Perhaps it started with a treble voice, maybe imitating a bird call, and another voice filling in a pulsing sound from below. Sounded fun so others joined in. And then they stood near each other and experienced the overtone series together for the first time. No going back then.

After our ancestral literary artists created words, those ancient choral singers realized that by adding words to those beautiful sounds they could tell stories, honor the deities and each other, express the joy of life with a voice of singing.

People singing together. It is natural, it’s primal and it’s back in full force for the upcoming 2024-25 Choral Season here in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Dear choirs, you rocked it in last year’s season, with choral works brand new and old. You cheered on young singers in schools and community youth choirs who found their ways back to the healthy camaraderie of musical discipline, choral performing and touring. Audiences returned. You took in new members yearning to regain what they had lost in the pandemic silence.

This was true for local composer Sydney Guillaume, whose music you will hear aplenty in the upcoming season. Guillaume has been active in guest appearances and performances of his own works but wrote in recent email to OAW “singing was something that was missing in my life and I wanted to get back to doing it again.” He has. He and the five other members of their new vocal ensemble, Boyfriends, just presented their yearly concert (please may we have some more!) and he is singing in an upcoming Chor Anno concert.

What’s that? It’s Chor Anno time? Now we know the choral season is about to begin.

Ready, steady, sing

Chor Anno performs In Washington and Oregon on September 14th and 15th. Words and singing–telling stories and expressing emotion. This is Chor Anno. When you review their Fall ‘24 repertoire you might marvel at how these folks so early in the season put together nineteen choral works, related in theme, diverse in musical era, a cappella or accompanied (by piano or string quartet). Choosing repertoire is an enormous task and founding Associate Conductor Howard Meharg wrote in recent email to OAW that he and Conductor Nicole Lamartine reviewed about 200 works to form this Chor Anno once-yearly concert for us.

The theme, “the promise of living,” is one to which you can connect. Composers you know well – Runestad, Copland, Hagenberg, and, yes, Guillaume – will be sung. But perhaps you’ll hear some composers for the first time – Jacob Navarud and Jennifer Lucy Cook whose compelling piece Time can be heard here.

Stellar musicianship? You betcha. Most of these singers (S/A and T/B bios) are the folks who teach music education to your children in Southern Washington and Oregon, direct community choirs and lead music in your local places of worship. While they spend a good deal of time in front of a group they also value the opportunity to sing in one. Opening the 2024-25 choral season for the love of singing:

Chor Anno will perform on Saturday, September 14, 7 pm at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Olympia, Washington and on Sunday, September 15, 2 pm at Holy Redeemer Catholic Parish, Vancouver. A suggested concert donation is $20. More details can be found here. 

Before we take flight for a birds-eye view of the entire Oregon/SW Washington choral landscape let’s give a big shout out to our musician educators – like those in Chor Anno – already back in our high school, higher ed, middle and elementary classrooms. And a salute as well to those who teach music in our community programs. These musical arts we cherish – they begin with music education. Thank you, teachers.

Begin the Year with Peace and Justice

Satori Men’s Chorus had its first rehearsal last week but will revive some of the beautiful music from last year’s 30^th Anniversary season in Vancouver (WA) on Saturday, September 14 when they “proudly join the area’s community groups in helping us find further ways of dedicating our lives to peace and justice” (Satori media). The Vancouver Peace and Justice Fair runs from 9-3. Satori will sing at 10 am, third on the stage program which features numerous groups throughout the day including two sets by the Raging Grannies. 

Have you ever seen a local chapter of the Raging Grannies; heard the songs of the Raging Grannies? These folks express their passion in many ways, including in choral singing using their vast collection of rage-worthy songs?

Enjoy Satori, the Raging Grannies and much more at the Peace and Justice Fair, Saturday, September 14 at Esther Short Park in Vancouver, Washington. The fair is free.

Major major and minor major

Our choral audiences throughout Oregon and SW Washington will soon get to hear their favorite major works. Oh, yes, you know some of these well. Requiem masses – Mozart (Eugene Concert Choir and Festival Chorale Oregon), Fauré (Central Oregon Mastersingers); Verdi (Vancouver Master Chorale). And then we have two complete Messiahs, (Portland Baroque Orchestra and Eugene Concert Choir). But these are all with full orchestra. Does a major choral work have to be with orchestra? 

Gosh, no. That would leave out these two a cappella masses – Frank Martin’s Mass (Choral Arts Ensemble) and Latvian composer Ugis Praulińš’ Missa Rigensis (In Medio). The Credo of Margaret Bonds (Choral Arts Ensemble and Resonance/Orchestra Nova Northwest) will be performed two ways, once with piano and again with orchestra. Certainly the Orff-sanctioned two piano and percussion version of Carmina Burana (Oregon Chorale and Portland State Percussion Ensemble) is still a major work? 

And is there a standard length for a major work? The Passion and Resurrection of Fr. Ivan Moody (Cappella Romana with In Medio and 45th Parallel Universe) is 75 minutes. Fairly major. But Bach’s beloved Magnificat (Eugene Concert Choir and Festival Choral Oregon and Trinity Cathedral Choirs with Portland Baroque Orchestra) is only 25. Alzheimer’s Stories by Robert Cohen and Gospel Mass by Robert Ray (both Corvallis Repertory Singers) are each about one-half hour. Beethoven’s Choral Fantasia (Willamette Master Chorus) about 20 minutes. Maybe these should be called minor major works. 

Do some works ascend to “majorosity” after enough people hear them? Goodie. Then James Whitbourne’s Annelies, based on Anne Frank’s diary in hiding, which you may have heard in Portland last year and is performed this season in Corvallis (Corvallis Repertory Singers) is moving up. Also ascending is Frank La Rocca’s Requiem for the Forgotten, which hit Billboard heights after its recording by Benedict XVI Ensemble was released last winter by Cappella Records, You will hear it performed by Cappella Romana later this season.

Here’s one of this season’s works to contemplate: Oregon composer Joan Szymko’s Shadow and Light (Eugene Concert Choir), which she defined as her largest undertaking when it was commissioned in 2014 and premiered by ECC in 2016. In this work Szymko relays, with a voice of singing, the stories of people touched by Alzheimers. The 70-ish minute work for choir, orchestra and soloists received a repeat performed in 2019 by Oregon Repertory Singers (profile by Oregon Arts Watch). A film about the creation of Shadow and Light won Best Documentary in the 2017 Oregon Independent Film Festival. In 2025 the number of people in Oregon diagnosed with Alzheimer’s dementia is expected to exceed 80,000. This is a topic of major importance and the choral work is a major accomplishment by one of Oregon’s respected composers.

If we must label, from now on we’ll call these “extended works.” They are compositions that tell a full story, have purpose, relay a message, provide a voice. As you can see from the partial list above (oh yes, there are more) you’ll have many from which to choose this year. 

Voiceless for centuries

In Mulieribus is opening its season with an extended collection by one composer, Maddalena Casulana. Some of Casulana’s 16^th century compositions survived the passage of time and institutional nonrecognition of works by women. But some did not. In one set of seventeen madrigals from 1583 the alto partbook (literally the alto voice part to all of the songs) got lost. In 2021, it was discovered, identified and reunited with its companion parts. Musicologist nirvana! “That’s the thing,” said IM Artistic Director Anna Song in recent email to OAW, “scholars are still ‘finding’ music that is tucked away in some old library or attic somewhere.” Found, reunited and given a voice in our community by In Mulieribus. 

Also focusing in on the music of one composer, Vicente Lusitano, is the Marian Consort from the United Kingdom, who are performing in Seattle and Portland, presented by Cappella Romana. Lusitano, born in Olivença, Portugal, was a late Renaissance composer, the first published composer of African descent and a brilliant theorist. It is in February, Black History Month, that Cappella Romana welcomes the opportunity to bring Marian Consort and the music of Vicente Lusitano to the Pacific Northwest.

Come From Away

The Marian Consort is just one of ten professional touring choral groups that we can enjoy this season. Thank you, presenting organizations! And bravo Oregon and SW Washington audiences! Your love of the choral arts provides a supportive and welcoming atmosphere for some doggone good choral groups from around the world. Here’s a heads up on these performances because tickets tend to sell quickly. 

Coming up in November are two groups: choral and period music ensemble Vox Luminis from Belgium, presented by Cappella Romana, who will perform sacred works by Claudio Monteverdi; and German male choral ensemble Amarcord presented by Friends of Chamber Music. 

The Blacknificent 7 artists (composers/conductors/educators) all come from away for their November concert, presented by Resonance Ensemble, but one singer in the group, Damien Geter, is very dear to the Oregon musical community. You will hear the Oregon premiere of Geter’s Cantata for a More Hopeful Tomorrow and a Resonance-commissioned premier by Blacknificent 7 singer Dave Ragland.

In December, Voces8 returns to Portland (as y’all insisted after its concert last year) presented by Friends of Chamber Music, for a holiday-themed concert and The Reser in Beaverton presents We Four Kings for a night of gospel, jazz, blues fusion.

Oregon Bach Festival’s Chamber Music at Beall series welcomes Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble to Eugene in January and in May presents “Call for the Wailing Women: Laments and Lamentations in Italian Convents” performed by Cappella Artemisia. 

In February, Trinity Cathedral Music Series (Portland) invites two other choirs–St. Paul’s Episcopal, Burlingame, California and St. Mark’s Cathedral, Seattle–to join Trinity Cathedral Choir in an Evensong performance, and St. Paul’s Episcopal Music Series (Salem) will host a Boston Camerata concert “We’ll Be There!” – American Spirituals, Black and White (1800-1900).

Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds is certainly coming from away for his guest appearance with Oregon Repertory Singers next May. Considered a consummate choral composer, Ešenvalds has also composed for orchestra and for the operatic stage. In a full representation of his choral works you might hear electronics, campanelli or water-tuned glasses as in Stars which has become a favorite of ORS singers and audiences. 

Portland Symphonic Girlchoir has invited composer Tom Shelton to be its annual “Music in the Making Festival” Composer-in-Residence next April. 

Where’s our Chanticleer? They hear you loud and clear! In February our dear friends return to Portland for a concert presented by Friends of Chamber Music. But that’s not all. In addition to their February 21 concert, Chanticleer is spending a second day in Portland mentoring five choirs – hundreds of young singers and their conductors – in the art of learning about choral singing. The event is sponsored by Pacific Youth Choir and FOCM and the supporting venue Trinity Cathedral. A similar event was a great success in 2018 and the plans to repeat it in a couple years had to be put on hold. Till now! Awesome.

Nurturing the Next Generation

In Medio, Choro in Schola, Resonance Ensemble, Portland Symphonic Choir, Oregon Repertory Singers, In Mulieribus, Willamette Master Chorus, Vancouver Master Chorale, Reprise Choir, Eugene Concert Choir, Aurora, ISing Choir. These are some of our adult choral groups who are going into schools, sharing their performance stages with young musicians, promoting the choral arts and modeling how making music can bring people together. 

Choral FX, a collaboration between Pacific Youth Choir and Choro in Schola professional ensemble, is an afternoon of choral mentoring by PYC/Choro in Schola directors Chris Maunu and Amber Schroeder. The invitation event welcoming dozens of area high-school students culminates in a free performance by young festival participants and the professional singers in concert together.

At ChoirFest NW, student leaders from Portland metro high schools spend the day with Oregon Repertory Singers Youth Choir Program Director Aubrey Patterson and Portland State University Director of Choral Activities Ethan Sperry. At last year’s inaugural all-day event the students (and teachers) honed their skills in sight reading, engaged in skill-building games and shared the joy of community singing. 

In Mulieribus’ new Artist Residency Program “will provide two high school treble choirs and their choir programs with 10-12 weeks of support and assistance” (IM website). Two schools will be selected (more details and application here) this year to receive mentoring in their choral classrooms by IM’s teacher performers.

Sing, My Child – March 2025 will be In Medio Choir’s fourth high school invitational. Their mission is “supporting young singers and showing them how choral music can be part of their lives.” (In Medio website). Choirs sing under the direction of their own directors (several of whom are In Medio singers), learn and performing with each other and present an evening concert.

There is so much more to come

Choirs uplifting the creative voices of local composer, engaging with our Oregon Symphony and other local orchestras, offering new performances of neglected voices of the past, commissioning and premiering the new and introducing us to the power of leading with a voice of singing. These are the stories of Choral Season 2024-25 that are yet to be covered and will be next week in Part II. See you then.

CONNECTIONS

Northern Oregon and Southwest Washington BFF in Choral Music, Tom Hard, has filled his PDX Choral Calendar with every one of the above concerts within the greater Portland Metro. Visit now and through the year for concert times, venues and repertoire. If you haven’t sent him your choir’s info yet, he’s happy to add it at any time. Thanks, Tom.