S i n g i n g C i t y Notes
g City Uniting People Through Music Since 1948
Laura Lucasewcyz
Fall Concert Reflections
We asked choir members to tell us which of the selections from the fall concert is their favorite and why. We share four of them with you here.
Bogoroditse Devo
I love this piece because it reminds me of a cemetery. On my mother ’s side I am Ukrainian. Three generations ago, my maternal greatgrandparents immigrated to the U.S. and made a home in the Philadelphia area. They signed the deed to their new house in the Olney neighborhood while, at the same time, on the other side of the world, bombs were falling on H a w a i i . I n t h i s h o u s e , t h re e g e n e r a t i o n s w e re r a i s e d . M y great-grandparents spoke only Ukrainian to my grandmother. My grandmother spoke only some Ukrainian to my mother. My mother did not speak Ukrainian to me. It is unfortunate, but to Singing City Notes
Ryan Miller
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Terri Carter
be expected; some things are lost a censer and walking through rows over time in the Great Melting Pot. of headstones engraved in Cyrillic. And singing in a language and On my father ’s side I am Ukrai- style not the same, but quite similar nian. Unlike my mother, my father to parts of Rachmoninoff’s piece. himself stepped onto American soil for the first time as a young adult. It may seem morose to choose My paternal grandparents, who, this song as a favorite given the with their children, fled war-ravaged associations it holds for me, but Europe aboard the SS United States*, the music itself transforms my spoke Ukrainian to my father. Before images. The somber chant-like coming to the U.S., my father spent beginning of the piece soon soars six formative years of his life in a into life, and instead of the cemboarding school in France, where he etery, I think of the causes for joy learned French. My father did not that we’ve had as a family. There speak Ukrainian to me. My ancestral is harmony between the two. culture, to me, seems at once close and far removed. The family traditions *Currently docked in front of IKEA that surrounded me as a child— on Delaware Avenue, rescued from scrapwaxing and dyeing intricate eggs at ping and awaiting funds for renovation. Easter, feasting on borscht and -Laura Lucasewcyz perogies in the winter, hearing English sentences interjected with My first exposure to Lauridsen’s the few words of Ukrainian that Les chansons des roses was as a teenI could recognize—seemed like ager in a small public high school in they would continue forever. But central New York State. Our choir that hasn’t been the case. As older prepared Dirait-on for a perforrelatives wane, these traditions are mance at a late autumn high school replaced by another that has become festival in Montreal. How wonderfamiliar: a Ukrainian Orthodox ful it was to be singing such poetic priest, in full vestments, swinging French in one of the most poetic (and page 1
most French) cities in North America! The beautiful architecture of the Vieux-Port and the space in which we sang made a permanent impression on my adolescent brain. I was not in Montreal again until graduate school, and it was during that time that I gained fluency in the language I had been so impressed by as a teenager. The language of Quebec, like that of Rilke’s adopted homeland, the Canton of Valais in Switzerland, is not always easily understood or respected by the Académie Française. I find the things I appreciate about his work often remind me of the pride in the difference between Quebecois and “international” French. Rilke’s poems in French always have a special place in my heart, as do Lauridsen’s unique settings of Les chansons des roses. -Ryan Miller
Singing City Notes for Singing City has lasted for twenty-one years, and I look forward to many more.
Singing -Theresa Carter
Bogoroditse Devo
My reasons for loving this composition are twofold. First of all, Sergei Rachmaninov is one of my favorite composers. The second reason is much more profound. This selection enhances so many emotions and the music still sparks tears in my eyes. Whenever we sing Bogoroditse, I can still visualize the faces of the Russian families in Russia. In my opinion, Bogoroditse is a tribute to them.
During my first tour with Singing City to Russia in 1990, Bogoroditse was almost like our ‘signature’ song. Whenever we sang this in Moscow, Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and Novgorod, the responses were exhilarating. There were expressions of tears, smiles, happiness, peace and even chanting claps of joy.
The title, Bogoroditse Devo Raduisya, translates into ‘Rejoice Virgin Mother of God.’ This rendition was so appropriate, because truly it was a time for rejoicing. History was being made, with the collapsing of the Soviet Union in 1991. It was such an honor to have been a part of Russia’s historic moment. While in Russia, I was so touched by the struggles and endurance of the Russian people. It saddened me to watch families stand in long lines just for a loaf of bread and a dozen eggs. These are things that we take for granted every day in the United States. On a different note, it was also an inspiration to stand next to families who were allowed to worship in a cathedral for the first time. The memories are endless and they will never be forgotten.
Finally, this brings me to the last significant point, as to why I love Singing City. We are not just an ordinary choir that loves to sing and travel. We are a family that cares and supports each other, as well as human causes. Not only do we care, but we are able to make a difference through our music, regardless of race, creed or color. We also enjoy spreading the message through peace, harmony, love and human kindness. It is no wonder that my inspiration Fall 2010
Laura Gibson
Alleluia
I am guilty as charged of singing Alleluia from memory. It’s an old friend from high school who was always a bit of a thorn in my side. On our first introduction, I remember wondering why on earth someone would only set a single word (Alleluia! We get it already!). I spent years banging out the tenor line as new tenors struggled to memorize it (why is there only one word?!). I was always a bit nervous in concerts that only half of them would sing the right notes. Always the over-achiever, I chose Alleluia as one of my conducting pieces and struggled to learn all the parts myself. Every time we got through the stringendo section in one piece, I breathed a sigh of relief and proceeded to mess up the next page. So it has been with mixed feelings that I have reconnected with it in Singing City. What a difference 15 years (and experienced singers) make! Subtleties of texture and tonal shifts are fascinating. Quiet meditation is something I better understand. Perhaps I have even grown a bit wiser since high school. Hello old friend, you are sounding well. Alleluia! -Laura Gibson
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Fall Concert - Audience Favorites
O
n Saturday, November 6, Singing City borrowed a trick from radio and party DJs everywhere and had an ‘all-request’ concert. The repertoire was selected by attendees at last season’s performances, and their selections included some of the great works and great composers in today’s choral music scene.
indicated a preference for one or another, the prevailing sense was that all are among the best. After the performance, several audience members recommended another evening of favorites sometime in the near future. It seems that when it comes to great choral music, there is more than enough to go around.
The concert opened with four selections, the first of which was Rachmaninoff’s Bogoroditse Devo (the Russian Orthodox version of ‘Ave Maria’). This piece was the signature piece when Singing City toured in Russia in the early 1990s, so it brought back warm memories for many singers and audience members. The first of two hugely popular Randall Thompson selections followed, The Last Words of David. Prior to the third selection, Eric Whitacre’s Water Night, music director Jeff Brillhart had the choir sing a brief excerpt to introduce Whitacre’s unique harmonic style.
–Steve Crandall
g City While the first three numbers all display brilliant harmonic textures (in widely varying styles), the fourth piece in the opening set utilizes a different musical element, a sweeping melody, to convey its mood. Composer Morton Lauridsen is known for his harmonic textures, but Dirait-on, the last selection from his choral group Les Roses, alters his usual style by presenting a beautiful singing melody. (Singing City will perform the entire choral group at a concert later this season.) Acoustical difficulties prompted a change in staging for the next work, J. S. Bach’s motet Jesu, meine Freude. The choir moved forward and surrounded the accompanying instruments, a portatif organ and solo cello, for this most substantial of Bach’s six motets.
Following the intermission, Thompson’s classic Alleluia was performed. Perhaps no piece in the repertoire explores the meaning and emotion of a single word better than this piece. It has deservedly been a favorite of singers and audiences since its premiere in 1940.
Brahms’ voluptuous choral writing provides the perfect texture for the expressive text of the poem Nänie. It has been many years since Singing City last performed this piece, but it has clearly not been forgotten by the singers or the audience.
No concert of audience favorites, here in the US or anywhere around the world, would be complete without spirituals. Singing City closed its Fall Concert with two of the greatest, Soon-ah Will be Done, and Ezekiel Saw de Wheel. The rousing conclusion of these two numbers brought the audience quickly to their feet.
Some of the singers were asked which of the pieces from this concert was their favorite. While some
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Singing City Notes
What’s Coming Up! Winter Concert Voices of Philadelphia
A Mother-Daughter Collaboration
Singing Saturday, February 26, 2011, 7 p.m. First Baptist Church 17th & Sansom Streets, Philadelphia Featuring the Singing City Prize for Young Composers The Debut of the Singing City Children’s Choir With Guest Choirs Trouveres of the Pennsylvania Girlchoir Upper Darby High School Encore Singers
63rd Anniversary Concert The French Muse
Saturday, April 30, 2011, 8 p.m. The Church of the Holy Trinity Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia
I
was delighted when Jeffrey Brillhart approached me about composing a new work for Singing City for the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts. The chorus performed my “Into the Blue” so beautifully last year and I am thrilled to be working with this wonderful group again. The theme for PIFA is Paris 1910 – 1920, a place and time that holds special meaning for me: my early love of music was sparked by the compositions of Debussy, and my Philadelphia Salon concert series (see www.andreaclearfield. com) was inspired by the Parisian Salons of that era. When composing works for voice, I will spend time searching for the right texts. I look for poems that have some kind of inherent musicality and space for the musi-
Honegger’s King David Works by Lili Boulanger Les Fenêtres by Andrea Clearfield, commissioned by Singing City
with The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia Roxey Ballet Charlotte Blake Alston Elizabeth Weigle, soprano Suzanne DuPlantis, mezzo-soprano Kevin Delaney, tenor
For tickets and more information, call 215-569-9067 or visit our website: www.singingcity.org Tickets for The French Muse are available at pifa.org
Artist Louise Clearfield in her Manyunk studio.
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cal setting to breathe, develop, counter or amplify the text. Rainer Maria Rilke has long been one of my favorite poets and I was excited to discover that he not only had lived in Paris from 1902 – 1910, but had written over 400 poems in French! I bought his collected French works, chose four that had a particular resonance, and obtained permission from the publisher. These four poems come from a set about windows, Les Fenêtres. In the first poem, we observe a woman in a window as she raises her arms like a tender vase, a sudden éclat—a gesture of brilliant light. The other 3 poems view the world through different frames; the ecstasy of a young lover, who having gone through the window, discovers gentle doves on the other side; the strange window cautioning the impulsive one to wait; a window that transforms into a lyre made of stars that we play with our eyes. What could be more perfect than the metaphor of a window for music to play in—as Rilke depicts windows as other ways of seeing; framing life with possibility, mystery, beauty, vastness, joy and longing, Les Fenêtres will be a window into a musical world of multi colored sound and song inspired by these evocative poems. The work was commissioned to be paired with Arthur Honneger’s King David Oratorio, employing the same instrumentation of woodwinds, brass, percussion, piano/celesta/organ and only a single stringed instrument – the contrabass. This unusual group of instru-
ments will allow for a varied and colorful orchestration. My mother, painter Louise Clearfield, is also collaborating with us; she has created a stunning painting to the poems and the music and now I am working with the painting as it informs the composition. I have synesthesia (seeing colors to pitches) and have always been inspired by the rich and varied palette in my mother’s work. Symbols in the poetry mentioned above are beautifully evoked in her painting —the woman in the window, the “tendre vase,”the doves, the lyre. There are similarities in our artistic approaches; we both think about layering, texturing, form and color. This is our sixth interdisciplinary collaboration and we are very happy to be working together on this project.
g City I have been traveling since last summer, and various portions of the work have been composed in Philadelphia, Nepal, Bavaria, Rome, Umbria and Tuscany—in tea houses, castles, manors and inns, studios against ancient structures and even the room of the famous conductor, Maestro Toscanini (from where this article was written), all with fantastic windows! The choral parts with the piano reduction are almost complete and I will be finishing the instrumental parts at Yaddo artist colony in Saratoga Springs. I am very much looking forward to the performance of Les Fenêtres in April! –Andrea Clearfield
Welcome to the Singing City Children’s Choir!
The Singing City Children’s Choir joined the adult choir at Fellowship Farm in Pottstown, PA for a Saturday retreat in October. The Children’s Choir will have its debut at the annual Winter Concert, to be held this year on Saturday, February 26, 2011, at First Baptist Church, 17th & Sansom Streets, in Philadelphia. Singing City Notes
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The Singing City History Project The Beginning by Steve Crandall Dr. A. Herbert Haslam recognized the value of an outstanding choir. In 1931, he employed Mr. George A. Arkwell at his church, Tioga Baptist,, and gave him a charge to build a choir that would add inspiration to the worship service through music.
Singing City Notes
Singing Arkwell hit the ground running. The first year, the choir not only provided music for services, but also gave a special radio broadcast and began a program of exchanges with other church choirs as far away as Baltimore. The second year, the choir was invited to sing for a Baptist Leadership Training program, 'to show what could be done with a group under proper leadership and training.'
But Arkwell left Tioga Baptist at the end of the second year. With the choir's pledge to continue working under another director, Haslam recruited Miss Elaine Isaacson, who was then a senior student at Westminster Choir School. The choral program continued to develop, furthering the exchange program, participating in various choral festivals, and even singing with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Early in the fifth year of the choir's development, they sang at the wedding of their leader, Miss Issacson, to Mr. Hugh Brown. The following spring, their director, now Mrs. Elaine Brown, led them in a concert of secular music (in evening clothes rather than their usual vestments). This concert became a regular addition to their choral calendar.
During these years, Haslam was also an administrator of Fellowship House, which sought to bring people of different racial backgrounds together. He encouraged Elaine Brown and the choir in this facet of the work, and the choir began alternating with choirs from black congregations in the experimental community services that were offered by Fellowship House. It was soon determined that this 'taking turns' was inadequate, and other integration methods were sought, but a move interrupted this process.
In 1939, Haslam had accepted a pastorate at a Baptist Church in Toledo, Ohio, and the following year, he invited Elaine Brown to join him at his new church. She went, and the two of them continued their work of racial integration. In Toledo, Brown organized an interracial, interfaith community choir, but a second move was soon to interrupt again. Temple University requested that she return to Philadelphia to become the director of choral activities, and she reluctantly left her fledgling program in Toledo. Once back in Philadelphia, Brown and Fellowship House resumed their connection, and she was asked to pick up where she had left off in Toledo. Fellowship House provided rehearsal space and a budget of $50.00, and Brown organized a community choir made up of members of different churches and different racial backgrounds. The first year, the choir of 34 women, two basses and four tenors—World War II was underway by then—presented six public performances. Over the next years, Brown and the Fellowship House Choir developed together. She earned a Masters degree in music education (1945) and began teaching at Julliard School of Music (1947), and the choir grew to 60 voices, 40 performances annually, and a budget of $1500.00. By 1948, Temple University and the Philadelphia Inquirer were sponsors along with Fellowship House, and the name of the choir was changed to Singing City. These are the roots of Singing City, and what has blossomed in these 63 years is a testament to the vision of Elaine Brown and
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g City many others. In the coming months, many of you will be asked to share your history with this organization as part of a new Singing City History project. The final form of this history is yet to be determined, but we are excited to shine a spotlight on the past even as we move eagerly to an outstanding future.
Photos: On the steps of Fellowship House in Philadelphia, opposite page; Fellowship House Choir, 1950s, top; news article featuring Elaine Brown conducting the Fellowship House Choir, far left; and a portrait of Dr. A. Herbert Haslam.
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A Simple Gift You might want to make a gift to the Singing City endowment, but now is not the right time for you. Keep it simple. Make a bequest or deferred gift to the Choir. Your bequest will support the Choir’s endowment, which in turn will help strengthen the Choir’s ability to retain and attract the very best staff, provide ongoing support for Singing City in the Schools, stabilize the operational budget and establish a financial aid fund so that everyone in the choir can participate in retreats and go on tour.
Singing City Notes
Singing This kind of generosity sustains programs, improves services, and impacts and enhances lives. One way to continue to make a difference and perpetuate your generosity is by making a charitable bequest, a simple case of including Singing City in your will according to your intentions. This is just as important as current giving, maybe even more so, because it sets an example for others to emulate. It can be as easy as setting aside a specific amount or percentage of your estate. Keep it simple: make a bequest to Singing City. Your gift will be gratefully received and wisely used. If you would like to include Singing City in your planning, please contact Lauren Anderson at 215-569-9067 or by e-mail at lauren@singingcity.org.
Legacy Fund
Douglas and Deborah Faulkner • Sue Anne Grier Elizabeth L. Haslam • Judy Neilson • Rosalyn Ominsky • Tom and Barbara Rittenhouse • M’Annette Ruddell • Mary Ann Sullivan • John Wood
Tour to Bosnia and Serbia Planned for the Summer of 2012
Plans for Singing City’s next tour to Bosnia and Serbia in July 2012 are underway. The choir has a long touring history going back to the 1950s, when they traveled to the segregated South as an integrated choir. Performance and outreach are hallmarks of Singing City’s tours and this trip will be no different. The choir will visit Belgrade, Sarajevo, Mostar and Dubrovnik during the 12-day trip, with the opportunity to collaborate with SOS Children’s Villages, as we did in Brazil. Between performances, there will be time to explore the rich history and culture of the region. Anyone interested in joining Singing City on tour is invited to call the Singing City office for more information: 215-569-9067. There is no better way to travel!
Singing City Friends Drive
Jeffrey Brillhart—Music Director Lauren Anderson—Executive Director James A. Batt—Pianist, Assistant Conductor Steve Fisher, Associate Music Director, SCCC Steve Gearhart, Assistant Director, SCCC Katy Gentry, Workshop Director, SCIS Andrew Bleckner, Composer in Residence Victoria Baker—Choir Administrator & Office Manager Singing City 123 S. 17th St Philadelphia, PA 19103 tel 215-569-9067 fax 215-569-9088 info@singingcity.org www.singingcity.org
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..Singing City’s annual Friends Drive is
underway. Your gift has a direct impact on our work—from an outstanding concert series to music education in Philadelphia public schools, outreach concerts in care facilities, collaborations with area arts organizations and, beginning this season, the Singing City Children’s Choir. Send your gift to Singing City, 123 S. 17th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or give online at www.singingcity.org. Thank you!
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