Performing Brundibár : A Children’s Opera Honoring Jewish Resilience

January 27 marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorating the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau and honoring the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other v|ictims of the Nazi regime.

In recent years, the children’s opera Brundibár by Jewish Czech composer Hans Krása has seen an increase in performances in many countries, including the United States. The story, often performed by the children of the Theresienstadt concentration camp in occupied Czechoslovakia in 1943, weaves in popular fairy tales as two siblings overcome the organ grinder Brundibár to sing in their town square and help their ill mother. Chorus America members Young People’s Chorus of New York City (YPC) and the National Children’s Chorus (NCC) have both honored the Jewish community and the millions affected by Nazism by performing this significant musical work.

In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Young People’s Chorus of New York City performed at The Museum of Jewish Heritage on January 29. The performance featured 40 singers ages 8–11, a live orchestra directed by Eric Einhorn of On Site Opera, and was conducted by YPC associate conductor Sophia Papoulis. The program also included musical selections by Leonard Cohen, Simon & Garfunkel, and Leonard Bernstein conducted by YPC artistic director and founder Francisco J. Núñez.

On bringing the performance to the stage, Francisco J. Núñez shared in a report for OperaWire, “This performance helps teach our children that we must learn about the past and understand each other’s histories to be able to prepare for the future. Our choristers are also learning that, even today, we must continue to support each other and show resilience in the face of adversity.”

In early 2022, the National Children’s Chorus presented Brundibár: Virtual Opera Premiere, available for streaming on YouTube. The project features youth from the organization’s Opera Camp pilot program and the landscapes of Vail, Colorado, where filming took place, to “produce meaningful work that celebrates bravery in the face of defeat, persistence in the face of discouragement, and victory over tyranny by the joint efforts who fight for justice,” said Luke McEndarfer, artistic director and CEO of the National Children’s Chorus.

Later in September, the NCC released Brundibár: A Children’s Tribute to Ukraine. The album, dedicated to the people of Ukraine, brought together NCC students and a chamber orchestra virtually to record the children’s opera on their smartphones in bedrooms and closets across the United States.

Releases

OnJanuary 20, Cappella Records presented its 30th release, A Byzantine Emperor at King Henry’s Court: Christmas 1400, London, performed by Cappella Romana and led by founder and music director Alexander Lingas. The release brings to life medieval Byzantine and Sarum chant and royal ceremonial performed by two choirs, one singing in Greek and the other in Latin. In support of the release, the ensemble performed the program in Seattle and Portland in January—the first live performance of some of this music in centuries. On February 2, Oxford University Press published The Oxford Book of Choral Music by Black Composers . The release, edited by Marques L.A. Garrett, is one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of choral music exclusively by Black composers, containing non-idiomatic compositions from the sixteenth century to the present day. The collection contains a mixture of sacred and secular works including anthems, choral art songs, madrigals, motets, and part songs, accompanied and a cappella.

Navona Records announced the digital release of What Is Ours: Music for an America in Progress performed by Indiana University ensemble NOTUS under the direction of Dominick DiOrio. The album features recordings of works by Carlos Cordero, Andrea Ramsey, Reena Esmail, Joel Thompson, and IU alumni John Griffith II, Leigha Amick, and Moira Smiley, and includes the commissioned work A Chain is Broken, composed by DiOrio and created with Iranian American writer and poet Khashayar Tonekaboni.

The Brooklyn Youth Chorus (BYC, pictured) was part of artist and filmmaker Julian Rosefeldt’s film installation Euphoria, which premiered on November 29. Commissioned by the Park Avenue Armory, the immersive new work surrounded viewers with life-size projections of the BYC and acclaimed jazz musicians in an arena-like setting and featured quotations from economists, business magnates, writers, and celebrities to explore capitalism,

Awards

colonialism, and the effects of economic growth in society.

The Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia and Commonwealth Youthchoirs shared the world premiere of We are Waves on March 4. The premiere featured nearly 300 singers of varying ages and guest conductors Rollo Dilworth and Alysia Lee. Composed by Carlos Cordero in collaboration with Julie Flanders, We are Waves explores the joy, efforts and commitment of singing together and bringing music to life. n

The Boston Gay Men’s Chorus released Music Triumphs Homophobia, a documentary about the organization’s performance tours. The film highlights tours to Poland, the Middle East and South Africa, meetings with religious and political leaders, and the BGMC’s efforts to educate people about the LGBTQ+ community and encourage acceptance and respect.

On January 20, Leonard Ratzlaff received the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Medal as part of a celebration honoring Queen Elizabeth II’s 70 years of service as British and Canadian monarch. Salma Lakhani, Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Alberta, presented Ratzlaff with the award in at the Government House (pictured).

Alexander Lloyd Blake, executive/founding artistic director of the Los Angeles-based organization Tonality, received a $30,000 grant award from MAP Fund to fund the project Running From, Running To: A Musical Reflection on Ahmaud Arbery.

The project, created by Blake and Tonality, explores Ahmaud Arbery’s stolen passions, quirks, and dreams, and how we are all a part of Arbery’s story. The award is part of $2.6 million in grants distributed to more than 300 artists across 88 live performance projects in 2022.

Maria Ellis, owner of Girl Conductor, a company that creates diverse music education resources for students and educators of all ages, will be honored at the 2023 St. Louis Arts Awards as an Art Innovator. The St. Louis Arts Awards honor the incredible artists, organizations, and individuals that keep the arts alive in the St. Louis, Missouri area.

Emily Williams Burch, coordinator of music education and professor of music at University of South Carolina Aiken, and executive and artistic director of RISE Chorales and RISE Outreach; Trevor Tran, alumnus of Chorus America’s Conducting academy and director of vocal arts and head of performing arts at Fort Myers High School in Florida; and Theodore

Thorpe III, director of choral activities at Alexandria City High School in Virginia, are featured in the Yamaha 40 Under 40 music education advocacy program. The 2023 list celebrates and recognizes outstanding music educators who triumphed before, during, and after the pandemic to keep their music programs thriving.

This year’s Grammy Awards recognized The Crossing’s Born: Music of Edie Hill & Michael Gilbertson as the winner in the Best Choral Performance category. This year’s win is the third for the Philadelphia-based choir. The Metropolitan Opera Chorus was also awarded the Grammy for the Best Opera Recording for Blanchard: Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Terence Blanchard. The opera’s opening night marked the first performance of a work by a Black composer to be presented by the Met. n

Appointments and Retirements

After a 38-year career with the San Antonio Mastersingers, John Silantien (pictured) retired from his position of music director for the Texas chorus. Silantien also held the position of director of choral activities for the University of Texas, San Antonio. Yoojin Muhn succeeds Silantien at UTSA and with the Mastersingers. The Mastersingers commissioned a piece by Ethan Wickman to honor Silantien and will premiere the work in April.

Jane Ramseyer Miller (pictured) retired after a 27-year tenure as the artistic director of One Voice Mixed Chorus in January. During Miller’s time with one of the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and straight allies (LGBTA) chorus, the current artistic director of GALA Choruses saw One Voice grow from a 40-person chorus to 125 people and worked with the chorus to tell powerful stories with music. In January, One Voice Mixed Chorus performed Generation, a farewell concert for Ramseyer Miller under her direction. J. David Moore (pictured) stepped into the position of interim artistic director for the chorus. u

On November 29, 2022, long-time Chorus America member and tireless champion for professional choral singing Albert (Al) McNeil passed away at the age of 102. McNeil was committed to the rich history and vibrant future of the African American choral tradition throughout his career, particularly through his work with the Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers, a group that he founded and led for over 50 years. McNeil also held a tenure of over 20 years at the University of California, Davis, directed the Sacramento Masterworks Chorale and the Sacramento Symphony Chorus, was on the board of directors for many organizations including Chorus America, and won countless awards for his contributions to the choral field.

Artistic director and founder of Oakland-based Cantare Con Vivo, David Morales shares with Chorus America words remembering his late former choir director and supporter.

Albert McNeil was the first to introduce me to the beauty and power of choral singing as my choir director in 1963 at Audubon Junior High School in Los Angeles. The diversity of choral music and the standards of excellence that Al drew out of us opened a world that I knew nothing about.

Al was a tremendous supporter for many of us. He demonstrated that what we were about as conductors first and foremost centered on the people with whom we worked. He gave significant voice to African American composers and arrangers in recounting stories that had been too long neglected, transforming such information into positive change. He took his life-calling seriously, educating, inspiring, and motivating singers and future conductors to be better people, multiplying good at every opportunity. We are all beneficiaries of his life and enduring spirit.

Former Chorus America board member and chair Marshall Rutter looks back at his relationship with his former colleague and at the ways McNeil supported and influenced the choral field.

As a lover of choral music, I was always in awe of Al McNeil. He was an inspiration, a force of nature, a musical genius, but, at the same time, a real mensch. As talented and famous as he became, he was a humble and kind man. He treated me like a brother, for which I was enormously grateful.

I got to know him when the legendary Roger Wagner invited Al and his Jubilee Singers to join the Los Angeles Master Chorale in a concert of African American Spirituals at The Music Center of Los Angeles. I, and several thousand other members of the audience, was thrilled by the music that Al’s chorus created.

Soon afterwards, when I was president of the board of the Master Chorale, I encouraged Al to became a member of the Master Chorale board.

As a director, Al always spoke from a different vantage point that raised our awareness of how we could do better. I wanted Al’s views to be heard at Chorus America and facilitated his election to that board. He was most thankful to me to have encouraged that relationship because he loved service to the national choral community.

Al’s accomplishments in spreading the joy and artistry of choral music were amazing, especially given his rather humble beginnings in Watts. He was a born musician who broke lots of barriers by becoming chair of the music department and director of choral activities at the very distinguished University of California, Davis and then taking the Jubilee Singers around the nation and world spreading joy wherever he went.

Composer Ned Rorem died at the age of 99 on November 18 in his home in New York. Rorem is the winner of the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his orchestral suite Air Music. Richard Coffey, music director emeritus of the Hartford Chorale and former artistic director of Connecticut-based CONCORA shares some words about Rorem.

As I read the many tributes to Ned Rorem at his passing, I was struck by how little mention was made of his extraordinary choral works. While he will ever, and appropriately, be revered for his magnificent art songs, his love of singing was also lavished upon the voice of the choir, and many of these works are of the utmost simplicity and of heart-warming beauty. A serious look at his publisher’s catalog of his works is highly encouraged.

In celebration of his 75th birthday in 1998, as the artistic director of CONCORA, I had the privilege of preparing and presenting our singers in a pair of song recitals of his works and a full-length concert of a large swath of his choral works, including a performance in New York on his birthday-eve, the composer himself present. At that time, CONCORA also released a compact-disc recording, “Sing My Soul,” and it was in bringing that to life that I had the good fortune of considerable correspondence with Mr. Rorem, all very animated, concise, colorful, and extraordinarily helpful. One, in fact, was a postcard whose reply to a question was simply “G-Flat is correct. Blessings. N.R.” At the end of this project came this hand-written note: “Thank you for the recent performances by CONCORA. It makes all the difference. Sometimes I feel that the world is unaware of today’s music. Then you appear, and everything changes.

Forever…Ned Rorem”

OnDecember 16, Robert Ray, founder of the Saint Louis Symphony’s IN UNISON Chorus, a 120-voice ensemble that focuses on the interpretation, performance, and preservation of Black American musical expression, passed away at the age of 76. The composer and teacher guided many young musicians as a professor at the University of Illinois and the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Many people in the choral community shared messages online in the wake of Ray’s death, including president and CEO of Equity Sings Arreon HarleyEmerson, who shared, “I am very sad to learn and share news of the passing of Dr. Robert Ray… We send prayers of comfort to his family, friends, and students during this incredibly difficult time.”

Singing City Choir shared Rollo Dilworth’s (pictured) appointment as the organization’s new artistic and music director. Dilworth is a board member of Chorus America and holds the positions of vice dean and professor of choral music education in the Department of Music Education and Therapy at Temple University’s Center for the Performing and Cinematic Arts. Dilworth will assume the new position in July, succeeding Jeffrey iSing Silicon Valley announced Rhett M. Del Campo (pictured) as its new executive director. Del Campo, who formerly held an eightyear tenure as executive director at Seraphic Fire, stepped into the position in January, during the second half of iSing’s 10th anniversary season.

Brillhart who will retire after 25 years with Singing City.

The Minnesota-based organization, Border CrosSing announced Matthew Valverde (pictured) as its first director of development & operations.

Before taking on the position, Matthew joined Border CrosSing as the tenor soloist for the December performance of El Mesías (The Messiah).

Choral Arts Initiative in Irvine, California appointed Kyrstin Ohta (pictured) as its first managing director. Ohta held the role of administrative assistant for the organization since 2019 and transitioned into the new role at the start of 2023.

The Tucson Girls Chorus (TGC) announced Nicky Manlove (pictured) as its fulltime community engagement director. Manlove also holds the positions of associate conductor and accompanist with TGC.

Alyson Moore (pictured) is stepping into the position of artistic director for the St. Louis Children’s Choirs (SLCC). Moore is the founder of the American Kodály Children’s Chorus in Baltimore, where she served as artistic director for seven years, and held the role of director of choirs at University High School in Fresno, California. Moore will succeed Barbara Berner (pictured) following the organization’s 2022–23 season, after Berner’s 45th year with SLCC. Berner is also receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award at the St. Louis Arts Awards on April 17.

The Cincinnati May Festival announced that director of choruses Robert Porco (pictured) will conclude his 35-season tenure with the May Festival in the 2023–24 season. Porco has worked with more than 1,300 individual singers of the May Festival Chorus and prepared 532 distinct choral works for 170 May Festival concerts, 26 of which he conducted. His acclaimed career spans over 40 years as a preparer and conductor of choral and orchestral works. Porco will be named director of choruses emeritus following his departure.

The Tucson Symphony Orchestra Chorus announced Marcela Molina (pictured) as its director beginning in the 2023-24 season. Molina also serves as the executive director of the Tucson Girls Chorus and as a board member for Chorus America.

The Washington Chorus (TWC) announced a 5-year extension of Eugene Rogers’ (pictured) contract as artistic director. TWC appointed Rogers, who is also a Chorus America board member, as its fifth artistic director in 2020. The Washington, DC-based organization also announced the transition of Anthony Salvi-Exner (pictured) into the role of executive director. Salvin-Exner previously sang with The Washington Chorus and was a board member before taking on the role of interim executive director in August 2022. n