Voice THE
Artistic Director Searches Choruses that Are Of, By, and For All Creativity in the Face of COVID
Secular Requiems
Vo l u m e 4 3 N u m b e r 4 Summer 2020
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Singing of Loss, 26 | Saving through Memory: The Healing Power of Secular Requiems by Thomas May
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From the President & CEO
From Inspiration to Action
by Catherine Dehoney
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Chorus Connections: COVID Special Edition Member News, Events, & Announcements
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Insights
How to Be Of, By, and for All: An Interview with Nina Simon
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On the Cover: The University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club performing Seven Last Words of the Unarmed, a setting of the dying words of African American men killed in police encounters, in the music documentary Love, Life & Loss. Photo: Michigan Media
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from the president & ceo
From Inspiration to Action To rise to today’s challenges, choruses need to marshal the power of their deeper missions.
T
he cover of this issue of the Voice features a photo of the University of Michigan Men’s Glee Club performing Seven Last Words of the Unarmed by Joel Thompson. The seven movements of this beautiful and devastating piece represent the last words of seven unarmed black men killed by police. When I heard the premiere of the fully orchestrated version led by Eugene Rogers at the 2017 SphinxConnect conference, I was deeply moved by an experience that was both heartbreaking and inspiring. Today, sadly, Seven Last Words of the Unarmed has been called into special service. In the face of more killings of unarmed Black Americans by police officers in recent months, culminating in the May 25 death of George Floyd, this extraordinary piece is being shared widely to offer solace, to demand justice, and to call us to action. To extend the work’s impact as a catalyst for social justice, it has become the center of a multi-faceted online project (sevenlastwords.org) that includes a documentary and education resources, information about policing reform efforts, and discussion guides for schools and communities. Systemic racism, with symptoms ranging from outright hatred, bigotry, and white supremacy to unconscious bias and complacency, has plagued our nation since its founding. It’s clear that we’ve not done nearly enough to eradicate this virus. We all, individually and collectively, must move from good intentions to specific, meaningful actions in our communities. Chorus America is committed to doing more to dismantle racism and to help choruses meet their potential as important agents of change. To rise to this challenge, choruses and choral organizations will need to face it with clarity and determination—to go beyond our music and marshal the power of our deeper missions.
We’re being challenged to do that as a choral community in multiple ways right now. The COVID-19 virus has been devastating to our field, with ongoing financial losses and the timeline for restarting operations and welcoming singers and audiences back still uncertain. I am confident that new studies will shed more light on mitigating risks for singers, researchers and physicians will develop better treatments for those who are sick, and we will discover that Holy Grail: a vaccine. But, as someone who is not skilled at being patient, I also know that the urgency to have these things now, coupled with the uncertain timeframe, is very frustrating. As stories have appeared in the news about choruses being affected by the virus, I’ve been getting a lot of questions from family, friends, and journalists. Some of them are curious about the technology behind the virtual choir performances they’ve been appreciating on social media, and many want to hear more cautionary tales of viral spread. But rather than discuss aerosolization or lament technology and latency issues, I talk about all the ways that choruses are about so much more than standing together and singing on a stage. I share data from our 2019 Chorus Impact Study about how people who sing in choruses are more likely to vote, volunteer, and give. I talk about how, right now, choruses are joining together to organize food drives, to bring joy to people who are isolated and lonely, and to teach children and youth important social and emotional skills. I tell them that there is a strong correlation between choral singing and tolerance and respect for the value of diversity. I talk about how, when faced with the threat of the virus, choruses are adapting virtual technologies to increase access to their art, to continue to connect with their singers and audiences, and above all, to serve. I try to leave them with this truth: Choruses are powerhouses of creativity, community, and civic engagement. You may not be hearing them (live) right now, but they continue to be important to the fabric of communities. Singing together has always been about creating something bigger than each of us alone. Choruses are uniquely equipped to meet the challenge of these unprecedented times and to bring lasting change to our world. Let us work together to leverage the power of our art beyond inspiration to action.
We all, individually and collectively, must move from good intentions to specific, meaningful actions in our communities.
Catherine Dehoney President & CEO, Chorus America
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A New Way Forward Across North America, the onset of the coronavirus outbreak brought a sudden halt to a defining element of our community—live, in-person performances, as well as rehearsals. With this central part of their identity (and, in some cases, income) abruptly taken away, dozens of choral organizations showed their creativity by quickly finding new ways to make music and serve their communities. This special edition of Chorus Connections spotlights many of the new initiatives that have sprouted up while society has been staying home.
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Participatory Projects With gatherings no longer limited to sharing a particular place, some organizations decided to invite anyone, anywhere, to make music together as part of their initiatives to draw their circles wider. The Jerusalem Youth Chorus (JYC) (pictured), a choral and dialogue program for Palestinian
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The Voice, Summer 2020
and Israeli youth from East and West Jerusalem led by artistic director Micah Hendler, created a new video of its anthem, Phillip Phillips’ “Home”—starring contributors from all over. JYC invited video submissions from around the world as a way of gathering its global family together and embodying the timely message of the song and featured cameos from famous friends, including Ysaÿe Barnwell, Melanie
Ne w Wor k s for Ne w Times Composers in the choral community have risen to the moment by creating new work in direct response to the pandemic, some in unique fashions. Reena Esmail is composing a series of short pieces entitled the Quarantine Madrigals. Conceived as an alternative to virtual choirs, each madrigal is designed to be a challenging puzzle for an individual singer that can be recorded with minimal technology. The sevenmovement work begins with four parts in the first movement, removes a part in each movement until a single voice remains in the middle, and then adds a voice one by one until there are four parts again in the final movement. The madrigals set haiku written by Los Angeles Master Chorale singer Amy Fogerson, describing our break from society and sinking into isolation, and our gradual return. Lisa Bielawa is producing a large-scale work entitled Broadcast from Home, featuring contributions from the public. Participants are invited to submit testimonies reflecting on their coronavirus experiences based on prompts that Bielawa provided. Using the contributions, she is crafting the musical material. As Bielawa writes, she posts melodies that she will incorporate, and singers can record and submit them to add their voices to the project. She is releasing new chapters each week so followers can see the work being created in progress. When gatherings are possible again, the full work will be performed in concert to memorialize the journey that has been completed. Michael Bussewitz-Quarm has dubbed her newly launched endeavors Pandemic Proof Choral Projects (pictured). The first project Bussewitz-Quarm announced is a commission
DeMore, Craig Jessop, Moira Smiley, and actors from the musical Hamilton. People were given three options to participate: sing the melody, dance to the music (singing optional), or, for the “music nerds,” sing harmonies or jam along on an instrument. Each day, VocalEssence associate conductor G. Phillip Shoultz III (pictured) kicks off the morning with five minutes of hope and health on Take Five with GPS. The program is a time for centering, reflecting, and gratitude and includes wellness components, poems,
consortium opportunity that blends online and live aspects for a new five-movement work entitled Where We Find Ourselves, inspired by a collection of portraits from the American South at the turn of the 20th century by photographer Hugh Mangum. The project begins with a weekly series of 10 online conversations led by Bussewitz-Quarm and lyricist Chantal Sellers delving into the work and the history behind it. If rehearsal and performance are not possible by the time of the project’s next phase, there is an online option to continue. Commissioned by Louisiana State University director of choral studies Trey Davis, Kile Smith composed an optimistic new work, offered to choruses in the hopes that it can be used for any efforts to gather support from their communities. The piece, entitled Everyone Sang, sets poetry from Siegfried Sassoon at the end of World War I. Smith has worked with MusicSpoke to make the piece available free to choruses everywhere during the coronavirus pandemic. Jim Papoulis brought youth from grades 6–12 together for a March 26 online workshop on
songwriting. Young participants were invited to discuss what they’re going through, aiming by the end of the workshop to write a song that speaks to this moment. To help celebrate the holy month of Ramadan virtually, Hussein Janmohamed served as composer and artistic director of Virtual Iftar Nights, a month-long intercultural community arts festival produced by MABELLEarts in Toronto. As part of the festival, Janmohamed composed a melody entitled “Lighting Our Lantern Hearts” for singers of any level to submit recordings of themselves as part of a virtual choir. Eric Whitacre, the composer who introduced the world to the virtual choir a decade ago, wrote a piece specifically for a new virtual choir to bring singers together during the coronavirus pandemic. Virtual Choir 6, featuring the new piece “Sing Gently,” has over 17,000 participants from almost 130 countries.
and—of course—song. Broadcasts air live on Facebook and YouTube and are archived to watch later on VocalEssence’s YouTube channel. VocalEssence also launched three digital programs: Musical Moments, a lunchtime series with artistic director Philip Brunelle, celebrating important composers in the organization’s history; Sounds of Hope, an uplifting singing challenge from VocalEssence’s youth choir, Singers Of This u www.chorusamerica.org
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chorus connections Age; and GPS and Friends, an interview series with special guests, hosted by G. Phillip Shoultz. An El Sistema-inspired program serving girls in three states, Sister Cities Girlchoir (pictured) launched a daily sing-along—15 minutes, three songs, every day at noon for a week in March. The playlist for the day was posted in advance. Sing-alongs were hosted on Zoom so that singers could see each other. “Singing required. Dancing is optional. Joy abounds.” Instruments were also encouraged at the gatherings.
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world in Bring the Sing Home (pictured). The burgeoning tradition is a spin-off of MPR’s Bring the Sing initiative, which brings Minnesotans together for in-person singing events. It began as a one-time event on April 17 with Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend” and now runs regularly with a new song each week. The National Lutheran Choir invited its audience to participate in its Virtual Hymn Project. To mark Pentecost on the church calendar, artistic director David Cherwien created an arrangement of F. Melius Christiansen’s “O Day Full of Grace” that allowed voices and instruments of all sizes and timbres to combine in a virtual mass choir.
Together with Rundfunkchor Berlin, festival producer INTERKULTUR organized the Sing Along project, held May 4–10. Under the direction of acclaimed English conductor Simon Halsey, the project enabled people from all over the world to sing together from their homes. Participants were invited to tune into daily 30-minute rehearsals via Facebook and YouTube, culminating in a final sing-along of “How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place” from Brahms’s German Requiem with Rundfunkchor Berlin. They were asked to record themselves in concert attire and share their videos and photos on social media. Young Professionals Choral Collective (YPCC) of Cincinnati was preparing to premiere the first movement of a new commission at a May 3 performance. With that engagement canceled, YPCC transformed the premiere into a virtual choir edition, open to submission from anyone. Participants were able to attend virtual sectionals and a “coffee chat” with director KellyAnn Nelson and composer Jacob Stone, and the virtual premiere was broadcast in a watch party on Facebook Live. Every Friday afternoon, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) gives listeners an opportunity to sing along with their neighbors across the state and across the
Concerts: Live, Recorded, and Hybrid No concerts, you say? These choruses constructed alternate formats to present a new range of performances that can be enjoyed virtually.
C4: The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective (pictured) mounted a live remote choral concert—possibly the first-ever such event—on April 23. The ensemble harnessed the inherent latency (a.k.a. lag) in a remote setup to perform asynchronous music and, as part of the event, hosted an audience Q&A surrounding the technical side. C4 gave a second live remote concert on May 21, experimenting with reducing latency as much as possible. The works performed in the second concert were still largely built on asynchronous elements but explored the capability for voices to sing essentially synchronously. Unable to hold its annual Paint the Town Red concert at Millennium Park
with 5,000 participating young singers from every zip code in the city, Chicago Children’s Choir (CCC) held a virtual version this year. The May 21 event included virtual choir compilations featuring videos of CCC singers, highlights of past performances, and uplifting messages from special guests, including Mayor Lori Lightfoot and First Lady Amy Eshleman, award-winning artists Chance the Rapper and Common, and others. Unable to gather students in Walt Disney Concert Hall as usual, LA Master Chorale moved its annual high school choral festival online for a Virtual High School Choir Festival. The June 3 event featured favorite moments of recent festivals, student interviews and testimonials from graduating seniors, and a culminating virtual performance by festival participants that included hundreds of submitted recordings. During the week of March 15—as performance cancellations began to snowball, but public health guidelines in many areas still permitted small gatherings of people—the professional, eight-member TTBB ensemble Cantus (pictured) filmed a collection of videos
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Musica Sacra congratulates Music Director Kent Tritle on being the 2020 recipient of the Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral Art.
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while it was still possible to sing together in person. The group has been releasing The COVID-19 Sessions over a series of weeks to help its community through a period of isolation with a gift of very timely live-recorded ensemble music. Voices of Silicon Valley began a YouTube concert series, debuting on May 10, that combines newly released virtual choir repertoire, recorded material from previous live concerts, and program notes from artistic director Cyril Deaconoff. ———————————
Becoming A Media Host Using various platforms and concepts, several organizations have discovered a talent for engaging their audiences through some type of show or program.
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singing together. Hosted by executive director Stephen Marc Beaudoin (pictured left), TWC TV incorporates special guests, live, in-home performances, and impromptu quizzes to enliven viewers’ spirits. TWC ran a pilot of five episodes, culminating in its first virtual choir performance on June 4, and Chorus America president and CEO Catherine Dehoney even got in on the act as a guest on one of the shows. JUNO-nominated Vancouver men’s chorus Chor Leoni is combining elements of podcasting and TV to create its new virtual livestream, Chor Leoni Inside. Artistic director Erick Lichte hosts the series, which features interviews with musical luminaries, artwork from local artists, and highlights from Chor Leoni’s concert videos and albums. With music director Anthony Blake Clark as host, Baltimore Choral Arts introduced the digital mini-series Music with the Maestro on Facebook Live. The weekly series, airing Thursdays at 5:45 p.m. ET, has featured interviews with guests, discussions of musical works, and small chamber ensemble performances with performers at an appropriate distance—when guidelines have allowed—led by Clark.
Seven Last Words of the Unarmed sets the dying words of seven unarmed black men killed at the hands of police. Twice a week at noon, artistic director Robert Simpson and the 2020 Grammywinning Houston Chamber Choir present favorite moments from past performances on their With One Accord podcast. Selections are chosen particularly to address the isolation that many of us are feeling. Miami’s Seraphic Fire launched Seraphic Saturday Podcast, a new monthly series that debuted in May. Episodes feature conversations with Seraphic Fire artists and special guests and incorporate questions submitted by listeners. The Zamir Chorale of Boston and its founder and artistic director, Joshua Jacobson, have been leaders in educating the choral field about the breadth and beauty of Jewish choral music, launching the project JewishChoralMusic.com last year. JewishChoralMusic.com introduced Podcasts in a Time of Corona, a series that shares Jewish choral works intended to comfort, along with short inspirational musical messages from the Zamir Chorale, narrated for context and background by Jacobson. Encore Tours created a new interview series called the Virtual Director’s Exchange. While choruses around the globe are unable to travel on planned tours or festivals, Encore’s new series pairs choral directors from different parts of the world to discuss what they are doing with their ensembles while everyone is at home. National Concerts began a video series featuring conversations with its roster of guest conductors and composers. ———————————
Rebroadcasting “And” Many ensembles have a rich library of recordings on which to draw while concerts are on hold—and several are repackaging them to bring added value for their followers to enjoy them in new ways. Tonality, a Los Angeles-based ensemble, has introduced TonalityTalks, a series on Facebook Live featuring conversations about representation and diverse perspectives in the choral community. In a recent episode (pictured) that took place one day after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, board chair Zanaida Robles and artistic director Alexander Lloyd Blake spoke with composer Joel Thompson, whose work 8
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Minnesota’s ensemble for LGBT singers and straight allies, One Voice Mixed Chorus, re-broadcast one of its productions of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta Pirates of Penzance, introducing a new element. To supplement the show, One Voice conducted interviews with performers and stage director Gary Briggle, airing the entire newly repackaged production live on YouTube and Facebook on April 15.
In place of its traditional biennial performances of Handel’s Messiah, the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square streamed a performance of the iconic oratorio on Good Friday. The Tabernacle Choir has created a hub on its website where the performance was streamed live and now can be watched on demand, and the page highlights plenty of resources and background information for enjoying the work, even including instructions for playing Messiah using Amazon’s Alexa. The Atlanta Master Chorale has highlighted past concert recordings in various forms, and on May 1 it streamed a live mini-concert live over YouTube, with commentary from artistic director Eric Nelson woven between selections. The chorale is also beginning a Monday Music Moment email series, showcasing one recording each week accompanied by written remarks from Nelson. In a YouTube series, Vancouver Chamber Choir is sharing recordings from its threevolume CD set Music for Healing, highlighting ways that soothing pieces on this past release connect to the present moment. After a standing-room-only live performance in March, the Cecilia Chorus of New York hosted an April 13 watch party for its recording of The Belshazzar Project (pictured), a multi-genre concert weaving together rap, country music, musical theater, and classical selections in five languages. True Concord Voices & Orchestra music director Eric Holtan has curated recordings by his ensemble and others to create weekly Spotify and YouTube choral music playlists that are designed to mimic the structure of themed concerts.
Santa Fe Desert Chorale has started two weekly video series: Musical Memories (pictured), to highlight previously unreleased recordings from past performances, and Chorale Conversations, for the audience to learn more about the individuals who make up the Desert Chorale community.
The Thirteen has created a virtual concert series, sharing past performances in their entirety on YouTube. Voices of Ascension began a daily e-newsletter called Voices of Connection, sharing a new choral recording from its archives each morning. ———————————
Responding to Community Needs Whether involving musical activities or not, some organizations have taken a step back and decided to refocus on some particular effort that can address a need in their community. Miami Children’s Chorus launched an initiative to provide free virtual choir instruction for all 3rd–12th graders in Miami-Dade County. Participants met virtually every week to rehearse, and to culminate the gatherings in late May the chorus created a virtual choir video that garnered television stories from local news outlets. Encore Creativity for Older Adults is launching Encore University, a six-week program enabling older adult singers from
around the world to connect and participate in a variety of singing classes. The new university model, held in lieu of Encore’s in-person camp programs, allows for unlimited access to programming under one all-inclusive tuition fee—lowering a barrier in an effort to help older adults participate in group singing, which research shows can alleviate loneliness. WomenSing of the Bay Area is planning #StandingOvation, a virtual mini-concert by members and alumni honoring frontline workers, to be unveiled in July. The chorus is also hosting weekly public singalongs over Zoom. The Symphonic Chorale of Southwest Florida established the Members Helping Members COVID Relief Fund to aid current chorale members in need of financial assistance during this crisis, including students and recent graduates just starting their careers and senior citizens on limited incomes. The chorale ran a campaign May 1– June 15 to encourage contributions from members, alumni, and the public. If the need exceeds the campaign goal, the chorale may extend the campaign, and it plans to donate the remainder of any unused funds to local community food banks.
Over a dozen Washington DC- area choruses are joining forces to provide a network of support to their local community, led by Choralis of Arlington, Virginia. The group has started by organizing a food drive among the participating choruses. ———————————
Highlights from the Virtual Choir Gallery Choruses around the continent have turned to virtual choirs to engage their singers and audiences. Here are a handful that have attracted attention.
Angel City Chorale (pictured) released a new music video combining individual chorale members in various scenes u
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chorus connections singing in quarantine with aerial footage of Los Angeles. The song in the video is “Sogno di Volare,” the theme to the popular video game Civilization VI, composed by Christopher Tin. The Young People’s Chorus of New York City (YPC) created a virtual album entitled Heroes, dedicated to New York City’s essential workers. YPC has been releasing one new music video each week, beginning on May 14 with its first single “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” To mark Earth Day, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles (GMCLA) created a virtual performance of Frank Ticheli’s “Earth Song.” GMCLA was to give the piece its TTBB world premiere at its spring concerts on April 4 and 5. The Boston Gay Men’s Chorus (BGMC) was featured on its local ABC affiliate, WCVB-TV, for a virtual choir send-off tribute to the station’s Randy Price, a longtime BGMC supporter and the first openly LGBTQ+ newscaster in the United States, performing its signature song, “Everything Possible.”
Boston Children’s Chorus (BCC) (pictured) has produced a series of virtual choirs, striking up collaborations in each new release. BCC hit a high note partnering with Grammy-winning artist Keb’ Mo’ and other youth choruses around the globe to create a video of the song “Let Your Light Shine.” During the series, BCC has collaborated with other Grammy-nominated artists as well as youth choruses in the U.S., U.K., Russia, South Africa, Australia, and
Estonia and paid tribute to health care workers at Massachusetts General Hospital. Cincinnati Youth Choir shared a virtual choir production of the Wailin’ Jennys song “One Voice,” which received over 10,000 views on YouTube. Jacksonville Children’s Chorus put together a virtual rendition of “Sing,” a song made famous on Sesame Street. n
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Waiting to Take Wing: Premieres Deferred Among countless affected performances were eagerly anticipated world premieres—works such as Damien Geter’s African American Requiem with Portland, Oregon’s Resonance Ensemble (for more, see Secular Requiems, pp. 26-32) that explore timely and meaningful topics and involve collaborations, often spanning long periods, distances, or both. We asked several choruses about premieres they put on hold and their developing plans to find a way to share these new pieces of music with the world.
Voices of Ascension (New York City)—Astronautica: Voices of Women in Space Dennis Keene, artistic director
Astronautica—Voices of Women in Space (pictured) is a newly commissioned work of music, voice, and video with a score by nine women composers and a libretto drawn from the words of the women who have traveled in outer space and seen the world from a dramatic new perspective. The piece was scheduled to be performed at National Sawdust and the Flea Theater. The concert was to be the inaugural performance of Voices of the New, a new artistic initiative curated by Voices of Ascension ensemble member Hai-Ting Chinn, dedicated to exploring new horizons, ideas, and diverse culturally responsive connections in vocal chamber ensemble music. Are there as yet any updated plans for your premiere?
Keene: The live premiere was set to take place in May but was cancelled due to COVID-19. Instead it is being redesigned to become a digital piece of art to premiere via internet this coming fall. It will feature a libretto put together from interviews of women astronauts, music commissioned by nine women composers, special video created from NASA footage, and a trio of voices. Has the current pandemic made you consider the subject matter or the impact of to-be-premiered work in a new light? Keene: Astronautica is an artistic evocation of the transformation that happens when one sees our small planet set against the endless blackness of space. Without borders. Without the artificial boundaries which divide—and could well destroy—humankind. Certainly, this pandemic has shown us how completely interconnected this planet is. ________________________
Seattle Men’s Chorus— Love Beyond Borders Paul Caldwell, artistic director
This concert, originally scheduled for March 20 and 21, will spotlight Seattle’s unique status as epicenter for an effort to relocate LGBTQ individuals who grew up in Muslim-majority countries. Over 80 refugees who identify as LGBTQ have been rescued from their hostile home countries in the past couple of years, and still more are in process. In the Middle East, assaults, executions, and honor killings of LGBTQ people are very real threats. Seattle Men’s Chorus (SMC) artistic director Paul Caldwell met a retired Seattle chiropractor and activist named Michael Failla, who has been working to develop a modern-day Underground Railroad to help LGBTQ individuals in those countries escape to safety. While researching, Caldwell watched the film Out of Iraq, documenting the story of a gay Iraqi couple—a translator during the war in Iraq and a soldier in the Iraqi army—who spent years apart before reuniting in Seattle with help from Failla. The couple’s story became the inspiration for an entire concert program and a new commissioned work. With support from a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, SMC commissioned a choral song cycle that illuminates the stories of several of the refugees who have been served by Failla’s Underground Railroad, selecting composers for the project whose backgrounds in some way resonated with the asylum seekers. This overview primarily draws from an article by Barbara McMichael in The Connector magazine. Are there as yet any updated plans for your premiere? Caldwell: In a perfect world, we’ll perform the work in June of 2021. Alternately, if we can’t return to rehearsals in January, we have a plan. We’ll record the music virtual-choir style and use it to create a documentary. Some of the refugees who inspired the story are here in Seattle. Others are hiding in various hostile locations. But we have access to all of them via Zoom and WhatsApp. Technology affords us creative ways to engage in important storytelling and musicmaking during a time of separation. Has the current pandemic made you consider the subject matter or the impact of to-be-premiered work in a new light? u
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chorus connections Caldwell: We didn’t know it at the time, but #togetherapart was a rallying cry for this project from the start. We were inspired by LGBTQIA+ people hiding from a level of hostility the rest of us couldn’t imagine. The pandemic has, for now, kept us physically separated. But that separation has brought us closer in terms of mission, advocacy, and community. Our chorus’s weekly Zoom calls are being attended by a gay couple fleeing Syria, now isolated in an Eastern European safe house. Their outings to obtain food are shadowed by the fear of capture and the fear of COVID. Sometimes we feel exhausted by the inability to get a haircut or the shuttering of our favorite restaurant. Then we talk to these guys and get a huge reality check. ________________________ Cathedral Choral Society (Washington DC)—“March of the Women” Christopher Eanes, executive director Steven Fox, artistic director
Our March of the Women program celebrates the centenary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave some women the right to vote in the U.S. One of the composers represented is Dame Ethel Smyth, who was not only a suffragist but herself an accomplished composer. She was the first woman to have a work performed by the Metropolitan Opera— and it would be over 100 years before the next work by a woman was presented. She wrote a short work entitled “March of the Women” that was a rallying cry for suffragists everywhere. As cornerstones of the program, Maestro Fox commissioned new works from three extraordinary women writing today: Jessie Montgomery, Lisa Bielawa, and Augusta Read Thomas. Surrounding the project, there was also a major initiative planned to foster young female voices in composition through a composition masterclass and panel discussions. CCS was days away from this extraordinary performance when we were required to cancel, much to the dismay of all that had worked so hard to make this project come to light. Are there as yet any updated plans for your premiere? Eanes: CCS will not only perform this concert, we will do it with all the attendant festivities and peripheral events. Right 12 The Voice, Summer 2020
A Ligh t e r Side
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ays to make people smile are at a premium these days, and these projects have provided some much-needed levity. Tik-Tok-inspired video challenges have found their way to choral conductors during the pandemic. Quite a few conductors have teamed up to create their own choral-specific editions of the “Don’t Rush Challenge,” a viral video challenge on social media created in England by Black female college students trying to entertain themselves during shelter-in-place orders. A few of the most widely known conductors to participate include Jason Max Ferdinand of Oakwood University, André Thomas of Florida State University, and Joyce Garrett, formerly of the Christmas in Washington television specials. Several other choruses have highlighted individual singers in their ranks who released their own parody song videos, including Phoenix Chorale (Billy Joel’s “For the Longest Time”) and Chorus pro Musica (“Everything’s Closed,” spoofing Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes”). The Twin Cities chapter of Beer Choir (fittingly known as “the choir that sings while drinking beer”) is bringing the pub atmosphere home with
now, we are looking at it being on the 2020-2021 season, but as we know, anything could change at any moment. Fox: We did a virtual choir performance of Smyth’s “March of the Women” that we are showing to the chorus. It’s just another way we have tried to stay in touch with this repertoire that we had worked on for several months before having to postpone the concert. Has the current pandemic made you consider the subject matter or the impact of to-be-premiered work in a new light? Eanes: The subject of women’s voices in music remains as important as it was before the pandemic hit. For too long—especially by our own organization—women composers have been overlooked, and it is our aim to correct that in a unique, meaningful, and lasting way. Furthermore, it is our firm belief as an organization that only by continuing to work for change and move the art forward will choral music stay relevant though this crisis and long after. While we should be cautious in our plans to reopen and restart rehearsals, now is not the time to play it safe in our programming.
its Virtual Happy Hour series. Shows include sing-alongs, games, and interviews with special guests—all while enjoying local beers, of course. The singers of Cantus moved their popular Cantus Idol online this April. The ensemble’s annual competition pitting members against each other serves as a fundraiser, so it folded the grand finale into its 25th anniversary virtual gala. To mark the special milestone season, the group invited alumni back as part of the competition. Several Cantus singers have also gotten creative and whimsical with side projects, including Jacob Christopher’s Frozen 2 parody, “Working from Home.”
Boston Gay Men’s Chorus— A Peacock Among Pigeons Craig Coogan, executive director
A Peacock Among Pigeons is a hopeful, award-winning, LGBTQ-themed children’s book that tells the story of learning how to stand out when you don’t fit in. Broadway composer John Bucchino composed a score and wrote lyrics for a choral stage performance based on the book. The project was commissioned in partnership with the San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus and funded in part by an Equality Fund grant from the Boston Foundation. Five days prior to the world premiere we cancelled the concert, before it became the standard practice. We were on track to break some records for that concert cycle and were exploring how to present the piece sooner rather than later when it became clear that wasn’t going to be possible. A few weeks later we cancelled the remainder of the season—the first time in our 38-year history we’ve ever cancelled concerts. We paid all of the folks who would have made the magic happen, from front-of-house box
office staff to union musicians, and refunded all tickets [for patrons] who didn’t convert to donation within 10 days. After we did that, we asked our supporters to help us. They did, and we are so grateful. The cancellation was particularly hard on our creative team, who had spent months rehearsing the music, acting, and dancing, as well as designing costumes and lights. The book’s authors were about to get on flights to Boston, and the composer was already on his way. The 220 singers had worked hard to create John Bucchino’s amazing piece that music director Reuben Reynolds and assistant music director/ arranger/orchestrator Chad Weirick had developed over the last several years.
Are there as yet any updated plans for your premiere? Coogan: We will return to the rehearsal hall and public performances when it’s determined by health authorities and best practices from the sector that it’s safe to do so. We do not know when that will be, but we’re committed to telling the story of Peter the Peacock when we can. It’s the embodiment of our mission to create musical experiences that inspire change, build community, and celebrate difference.
Omaha Children’s Chorus— This Is Not a Drill Amanda Stevenson, artistic director
Has the current pandemic made you consider the subject matter or the impact of to-be-premiered work in a new light? Coogan: The message of Peacock Among Pigeons is about finding yourself and becoming the person that you’re meant to be. It’s about the importance and value of community. It celebrates the human spirit. This message is not time-specific. After quarantines and in the era of physical distancing, the message is even more resonant. We can’t wait to share it. ________________________
This Is Not a Drill by Michael BussewitzQuarm was commissioned by Omaha Children’s Choir (OCC) to address the issue of gun violence from a youth perspective. As our singers reflected on issues that were impacting them, it was clear they wanted to send a message to address the issue of lockdown drills. OCC singers were involved in the artistic process of contributing to the text through video conferencing with our lyricist, Chantal Sellers. Are there as yet any updated plans for your premiere? Stevenson: We are currently exploring a virtual premiere of the piece for the fall. There are several families in our chorus who do not have devices and/or internet at home. Our organization has a big focus on equity and access, so we aim to be able to have all singers that would like to participate in the premiere be able to do so. Additionally, we have immigrant and refugee families that have been directly impacted by COVID-19 through job loss and/or parents and family members u
REL NEW EAS E!
All Things Common ROBERT ISTAD CONDUCTS PACIFIC CHORALE AND SALASTINA
Music of Tarik O’Regan
Robert Istad conducts Pacific Chorale and Salastina Music Society in music of Tarik O’Regan Available now at PacificChorale.org/recordings
Lenora Meister, executive producer
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© b a l l a r d i n i x v i a p i xa b ay
C horuses a n d C OV I D - 1 9 Resou rce Page
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horus America continues to track news and collect information about the impact of COVID-19 (coronavirus) from our members and partners. Our website serves as our central hub of information to help you stay informed and weather the storm. Visit bit.ly/ChorusCOVID.
chorus connections
their work (as we would have done at our April concert).
contracting the virus at work. We have needed to lean into the social change aspect of our mission during this crisis as it pertains to our families and community. Because of these issues, we are aiming for fall to give us a bit more time to plan and implement the premiere. For the remainder of our season, we held virtual rehearsals for those that were able to attend. This crisis has revealed inequities not only in education but also within the arts. OCC will continue to work to address these inequities as we move forward. OCC also partnered with Nebraskans Against Gun Violence, and we will be raising money to support
Has the current pandemic made you consider the subject matter or the impact of to-be-premiered work in a new light? Stevenson: In a recent conversation with some of our singers, they pointed out that since schools are closed, they have not had to experience lockdown drills. Another singer added that while school shootings haven’t been happening since schools have been closed, gun violence hasn’t stopped. For our virtual premiere, we will work with Nebraskans Against Gun Violence to share some updated statistics on gun violence during the pandemic and highlight the work they do in our state. n
Releases
Resource Highlights Collaborative webinars presented in partnership with National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS), and Performing Arts Medicine Association (PAMA) • Copyright Guidance for Singing in a Virtual World (June 9)
• A Conversation: What Do Science and Data Say About the NearTerm Future of Singing (May 5) Resources to help choruses budget and plan for the coming season, from thoughts on rehearsal protocols to audience behavior Relief funding and congressional action information for organizations and individual artists from Chorus America and our advocacy partners Coming in July! COVD-19 Economic Impact Study We are working with partners SMU DataArts to develop a special report on the impact of COVID-19 on the choral community, with data drawn from the Chorus Operations Survey and our COVID-19 Economic Impact Survey.
14 The Voice, Summer 2020
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n March 10, Tacoma Refugee Choir (pictured) released “Be Counted,” a music video for an original song promoting participation in the 2020 United States Census. The song was the centerpiece to the choir’s Be Counted campaign, which raised awareness among members and in the surrounding community about the important benefits of an accurate census count and addressed fears and misconceptions about using the data to target individuals based on their citizenship or immigration status. The Crossing, based in Philadelphia, released a new film featuring David Lang’s protect yourself from infection (pictured), which commemorates the centennial of the 1918–19 Spanish Influenza pandemic. The work was commissioned by the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia—
©st eve n bradshaw
• Singing: What We CAN Do (May 26)
well before the global coronavirus outbreak—for its September 2019 parade and new exhibition, Spit Spreads Death. The new recording of Lang’s work was
also broadcast on more than 280 public radio stations across the United States by American Public Media’s Performance Today. Pacific Chorale of Costa Mesa, California, released All Things Common, the chorale’s first recording under the artistic leadership of Robert Istad. The album features music by Tarik O’Regan, the chorale’s composer in residence, and includes the world premiere recording of “Facing West,” to a text by Walt Whitman, which received its premiere performance by Pacific Chorale in May 2019. Chicago Chamber Choir released its first album in more than five years, LIVE ART. The limited edition collection features the ensemble’s best live recordings of the past three seasons. The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square, Salt Lake City, released When You Believe: A Night at the Movies. The Tabernacle Choir’s latest album includes uplifting songs from Star Wars, The Avengers, and other popular films that capture the concept of music as a means to inspire and build faith. n
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Online Chorus Management Institute August 10 –November 22, 2020
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niversity of Cincinnati CollegeConservatory of Music (CCM) announced the appointment of conductor Joe Miller (pictured) as its next director of choral studies. A two-time CCM graduate (MM ’92, DMA ’97), Miller begins his tenure August 15, arriving from Westminster Choir College, where he led the choral program for nearly 15 years. Miller succeeds Earl Rivers (pictured), who retires after a nearly 50-year career at CCM. Rivers served 16 years on the Chorus America board of directors and received the 2004 Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral Art. In 2015, Chorus America named him Director Laureate. u
© i sto ckPh oto/ rel i f
Appointments and Retirements Get the fundamentals of chorus management in a convenient online program that prioritizes hands-on training, interaction with faculty, and putting the content you’re learning into practice right away. You will leave the Institute with the knowledge and skills you need to lead your organization to success, and with a one-of-a-kind credential to add to your resume.
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Brian Newhouse retired from Classical Minnesota Public Radio, St. Paul, in May after 37 years. As director of classical programming for MPR and American Public Media, his hosting duties included the Choral Stream—one of the nation’s leading media outlets dedicated entirely to classical choral music—and for 25 years he also hosted MPR’s Friday evening Minnesota Orchestra broadcasts from Orchestra Hall. Newhouse continues to serve as board chair of Chorus America.
©Tim Ke e le r
Brian Newhouse (center) shares a laugh with conductor Dale Warland (left) and composer Dominick Argento (right) during a preconcert talk at the 2014 Minnesota Beethoven Festival.
After 39 years on the choral faculty, Leonard Ratzlaff (pictured) retired as professor of choral conducting from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, at the conclusion of the 2019–20 academic year. In 1989, Ratzlaff co-founded the university’s graduate choral conducting program, now the most established such program in Canada. He continues to direct the Richard Eaton Singers. Ratzlaff is succeeded by current UAlberta associate professor Timothy Shantz. Chanticleer has named Tim Keeler (pictured) as its next music director, beginning with the 2020–21 season in August. A countertenor and former singer in Chanticleer, Keeler graduated this spring from the University of Maryland’s doctoral program. He has directed ensembles in the Young People’s Chorus of New York City and the Juilliard Summer Performing Arts Program, among others,
C horus A me r ica B oa r d of Di r ec tor s E l ec t s Ne w Leade r s
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he Chorus America board welcomed five members in June (pictured top to bottom): Anton Armstrong, Tosdal Professor of Music at St. Olaf College; Anne Keiser, former chair and current board member, Choral Arts Society of Washington; Alysia Lee, education program supervisor for Fine Arts education for the Maryland State Department of Education and founder and artistic director, Sister Cities Girlchoir; Marcela Molina, director, Tucson Girls Chorus; and Diana Sáez, director of choral activities at Towson University.
and performed with numerous groups including the choirs of Trinity Wall Street and King’s College Cambridge. The Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore appointed Beth Willer (pictured) as its new director of choral studies, beginning in the fall 2020 semester. Prior to joining the Peabody faculty, Willer served as director of choral activities at Bucknell University and continues as artistic director of Lorelei Ensemble, based in Boston. The Mendelssohn Club Chorus of Philadelphia appointed Dominick DiOrio (pictured) as its next artistic director and conductor. A conductor and composer, DiOrio also serves as associate professor of music on the conducting faculty at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Young Professionals Choral Collective (YPCC) of Cincinnati has named Danielle Cozart Steele (pictured) as its next artistic director, beginning July 1. Cozart Steele teaches voice and conducting on the faculty of Indiana University
This spring marked Anton Armstrong’s 30th year as conductor of the St. Olaf Choir in Northfield, Minnesota, one of the nation’s most celebrated choruses. Only the choir’s fourth conductor since its founding in 1912, Armstrong has expanded its repertoire and touring during his tenure. He also rejoins the Chorus America board of directors this June.
16 The Voice, Summer 2020
© M. Kornb l ut h
chorus connections
Four individuals completed their Chorus America board service in June (pictured top to bottom). Shawn Crouch, Joy Douglass, and Leonard Ratzlaff each rotated off the board after nine years of service, and Catherine Peterson left the board after 10 years of service, including a year as immediate past chair. They were recognized for their invaluable contributions to Chorus America during the Virtual Conference.
East and is the founder and organizer of the Transgender Singing Voice Conference. Cozart Steele succeeds founder and artistic director KellyAnn Nelson, who led the organization for its first eight seasons. Joyce Keil (pictured), artistic director and co-founder of the Bay Area’s Ragazzi Boys Chorus, retired after 33 years helping to lead the organization to an international reputation. Assuming artistic leadership for Ragazzi is executive director Kent Jue (pictured), who has been working as artistic directordesignate during a two-year transition. Trenton Children’s Chorus appointed Vinroy D. Brown Jr. (pictured) as artistic director, beginning this summer. (See Visions of New Leadership, pp. 18-24.) Brown is also founder and artistic director of the Elmwood Concert Singers and artistic director and conductor of the Capital Singers of Trenton and serves on the sacred music faculty at Westminster Choir College. Los Angeles Master Chorale (LAMC) appointed composer Reena Esmail (pictured) as its new artist-in-residence. In her work, Esmail blends elements of Indian and Western classical music and aims to bring communities together through her compositions. LAMC plans to perform her work I Rise: Women in Song in 2021. n
e Sav the ! Date
2021 Š i sto ckph oto/ G i a n Lor enzo F err e tti P h otogr a p h y
Chorus
America Conference
Minneapolis, MN June 16–19 Hosted by Classical MPR
A week of learning and community that addresses the changing needs of our field
chorusamerica.org
Visions of New Leadership
Lessons from Five Artistic Director Searches Several choral music organizations find themselves seeking or transitioning to new artistic leaders at a time when shifting circumstances call on them to consider challenging new directions, not the least of which is the COVID-19 pandemic. In light of these challenges, what are choruses in transition thinking about the kind of leadership they need? How do they manage to find it? How will they and their new artistic directors define and achieve success next season, not to mention seasons beyond? BY DON LEE
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hat does it take to find someone equipped to be the artistic leader of a chorus in the 21st century? Any chorus conducting a search seeks an outstanding musician, of course, not to mention an inspiring team builder, a skilled conductor, an imaginative programmer…the list goes on. Choruses that are looking afresh at their roles in their communities or intensifying efforts toward diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are seeking capable artistic directors who share the vision. And now, in the face of COVID-19, these leaders will be called on to imagine their organization’s future beyond the pandemic. 18 The Voice, Summer 2020
In light of all that, what’s needed is “an artistic leader with a strong vision and strong values that permeate the musical process,” says Alysia Lee, who is both a consultant and artistic director of Sister Cities Girlchoir, based in Philadelphia and Baltimore. “Your artistic director guides the soul of your organization.” Conversations with key players in several recent artistic director searches, some of them still ongoing, reveal that identifying the right leader requires clarity about the values of their choruses—whether they relate to artistic excellence, community engagement, DEI, or a combination of all of them.
Connecting Process to Values Kara Morrisey has been part of three leadership searches at the Washington Chorus (TWC), but its recent artistic director hire was different, she says, because the process was designed around organizational values—beginning with the writing of the position description. “We really wanted to make our position description, the first thing that we put out, to be an inclusive document,” she says. DEI was the value most important to the chorus and, by extension, the search committee, which Morrissey headed as incoming board director. Guided by Lee, the group captured other values important to the chorus’s community by polling stakeholders to ask what they were hoping for in a new artistic director. “Key words came out of that,” says Morrissey: “conductor, leader, community partner, collaborator, teacher. So from those words, we sort of built our position description.” Lee encourages organizations seeking new leadership to let values and vision be their guide because that strategy “yields employees who are better connected around the most important part of what makes your organization run.” The Trenton Children’s Chorus (TCC) and Toronto Mendelssohn Choir (TMC) took similar approaches. The TCC interviewed alums “to find out what they will carry with them, what makes the organization special,” says executive director Kate Mulligan. The Toronto approach began
If the position description you advertise is centered on your goals, the resulting candidate pool will more than likely reflect those efforts, says Lee. Maintain your focus on goals through the interview process, she advises. In preparing for that stage, Baldwin says her team at PWC spent considerable time brainstorming the most important qualities they were seeking—the must-haves vs. the nice-to-haves—and “then we tailored questions to get at what we’re looking for.” It’s not enough to ask whether a candidate holds a particular belief or value, says Lee. “Really, the question is, ‘And what have you done about it?’ If you’re an artist living in the 21st century that values something, you should be able to share some examples of some action or a community connection that are really guided by your ideas.”
Involving the Community
Vinroy Brown Jr., a faculty member at Westminster Choir College and an active conductor in the Trenton area, is taking over this summer as artistic director of the Trenton Children’s Chorus.
with a committee that drafted a position profile and then circulated it to choristers, board members, and others “to make sure that we hadn’t forgotten anything and we’re putting the emphasis in the right places,” says board director and search committee chair Dick Freeborough. They established that their main focus for the position would be artistic excellence. “This is probably the preeminent choir in Canada and serious business for us,” Freeborough says, “so we have to shoot for the stars.” Artistic excellence is also the top priority for the Peninsula Women’s Chorus, based in Palo Alto, California. But as an ensemble that specializes in treble repertoire and adventurous programming, the PWC wants someone with a similar calling. “We do have a long history of what we have sung,” says executive director Tricia Baldwin, “and we also want someone who appreciates our sense of community.” Unusual position requirements have shaped searches for the Bach Choir of Bethlehem and the TCC as well. Beyond
someone steeped in Bach and other baroque repertoire, the new artistic director of the 125-year-old Bach Choir will need to be someone ready for a purview that includes three large ensembles: a volunteer choir, a professional orchestra, and a children’s choir, not to mention an extensive educational outreach program. At the TCC, Mulligan notes that in addition to an emphasis on musicality, “there also is a very strong element of youth development because of the population that we serve. We wanted to find somebody that also wanted to work with a lot of at-risk kids and really had a passion for that.”
Choruses consult their communities to help them focus their values because honoring community is a value baked into choral culture. The success of any chorus depends on “a grand consensus,” as Lee puts it. So when a hiring decision is made,” she says, “everyone in the stakeholder group should feel like, ‘You know what, I may have really liked Person B, but I see why Person A is the best,’ because all of the criteria are laid out for everyone.” Freeborough has served on numerous corporate boards, where, in leadership searches, “senior people typically approach senior people.” But his first experience with a nonprofit search—for a new president of the University of Guelph—introduced him to a different model, one that the TMC is applying in its current effort. “In developing the position description, we talked to lots of people. Having choir people on the committee, having outsiders on the committee, and having real music experts on the committee enabled us to get lots of different perspectives and to get to the right place.” Applying that same approach, the u
“Having choir people on the committee, having outsiders on the committee, and having real music experts on the committee enabled us to get lots of different perspectives and to get to the right place.” –Dick Freeborough www.chorusamerica.org
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Pandemic Proof Choral Consortiums BLENDING VIRTUAL WITH LIVE
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"WHERE WE FIND OURSELVES"
Based on the photographs of Hugh Mangum (1877-1922) with curators Margaret Sartor & Alex Harris
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“THE DEATH & LIFE OF AIDA HERNANDEZ: A BORDER STORY"
with author, Aaron Bobrow-Strain for treble and women's choirs
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THE GREAT AMERICAN CHORAL REEF Improvise. Create. Connect.
www.MBQStudio.com/projects Michael Bussewitz-Quarm, composer Chantal Sellers & Euan Tait, lyricists
World Singing Day Oct. 17, 2020 Host a community sing-along on World Singing Day and boost your choir enrollment. Resources at WorldSingingDay.org
Sing together. Unite the world. 20 The Voice, Summer 2020
After nearly 40 years of leadership from Greg Funfgeld, the Bach Choir of Bethlehem aims to have a new artistic director in place by June 2021.
Visions of New Leadership Bach Choir of Bethlehem created a search committee carefully chosen to span the organization’s constituencies, says committee co-chair and board president Hal Black: “from the professional side to the amateur side, from the grizzled veterans who have been around the choir for a long time to relatively young members. And what I have found is that the interplay and the way these various individuals counterbalance each other has been really a wonderful plus to the whole process.” Once the search committee winnows the candidate list down—first to semifinalists interviewed by phone or video, and then to a handful of finalists invited for in-person visits—singers often come into the picture. The PWC, for instance, plans to have two or three candidates who will lead full rehearsals that will include a song familiar to the chorus and then one or two songs the conductor wants to teach them. “We’re hoping in that to see the chemistry between the accompanist and the conductor, the chemistry between the conductor and the chorus,” says Baldwin. After these get-acquainted rehearsals, chorus members sometimes have the chance to rate their experience in a survey—even the kids in Trenton’s intermediate choir. “We wanted them to feel like this was this was going to be their person and they were excited about it,” says Mulligan.
For some choruses, auditions include public performances. The Phoenix Chorale received widespread attention when it promoted its 2018-19 season as a chance for followers to get to know its four artistic director finalists, each of whom led a weekend of concerts in addition to meeting with the board, staff, and community members. The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir is having its two remaining contenders lead public concerts, one this past February and the other still to come. Freeborough says they are being billed simply as guest conductors, although he is sure many audience members will know there’s more to the story. That kind of approach has paid off for conductor Eugene Rogers in that “I already feel a sense of connection to the community, which I think is not always typical right away.” Hired in February, Rogers hasn’t yet officially started his new job as artistic director of the Washington Chorus, but he says “I already feel like I have people that I plan to interact with, engage, ask questions. Seeing their commitment to broadening the vision of the organization makes me comfortable with bringing new ideas to the fore immediately.”
Emphasizing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Why should a chorus emphasize DEI in its hiring process? This is Alysia Lee’s answer: “It’s not healthy for an organization just to
“Your artistic director guides the soul of your organization.” –Alysia Lee
the Washington Chorus had searched before.” Along with the likely suspects—Chorus America, ACDA, the Conductor’s Guild, the League of American Orchestras, Musical America, and LinkedIn—TWC promoted its opening via SphinxConnect, the annual convening of the Detroit-based Sphinx Organization, and Insight into Diversity, which bills itself as “the oldest and largest diversity magazine and website in higher education today.” The stakeholder survey that guided TWC’s search told Morrissey and her colleagues that they were on the right track. “People kept saying, ‘I want to experience something a little bit different.’ I mean, our world is changing, and we know that choral music and singing together brings us together.” The committee brought in Lee because “she’s known as a leader in terms of making diversity, equity, and inclusion an integral part of what you’re doing, not just a box that you check.” “Because of the way our beautiful human minds work, we like to see things that are familiar to us and latch on to them,” Lee says. This tendency, known as “unintentional bias,” became an important takeaway for Morrissey. Through listening to Lee and reading several case studies, Morrissey found new words to call out the inclination we all have toward ideas and people we’ve grown most comfortable with, and the preparation helped her “check my own gut reaction” during interviews. Afterward, she says, the committee used a candidate evaluation rubric based “on our [value-centered] interview questions and not on that sort of gut feeling in the room.” u
CONGRATULATIONS Young Women’s Choral Projects of San Francisco and Artistic Director Susan McMane! It’s a great honor for us to receive Chorus America’s 2020 Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence. YWCP thanks its Board of Directors and founding Artistic & Executive Director Susan McMane for their leadership in creating a nurturing and joyful place to transform the lives of young women through excellence in choral artistry.
YOUNG WOMEN’S
CHORAL PROJECTS OF SAN FRANCISCO
www.ywcp.org
Online
Music that makes a difference. On stage, Online.
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A Priori Photography
be composed of a bunch of people who talk, think, look, dress, and are alike in so many ways. We know that that does not allow your organization to move forward, to propel itself into the future.” Aligning themselves with that belief, choruses represented in this story made committed efforts to attract a diverse pool of applicants, perhaps none more so than the Washington Chorus. In addition to networking, “where we posted the job description was a big piece,” says Morrissey. “I think that went a long way in reaching into places where I don’t know if
www.chorusamerica.org 21
Visions of New Leadership New for Christmas
Little Tree SATB & Orchestra (5 min.) A tender and joyful rendition of an E. E. Cummings favorite.
Christmas at Sea Narrator, Mixed Chorus and Orchestra (10 min.) For the adventurous programmer, consider this setting of Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem. Not everyone gets to celebrate Christmas in the traditional way. Here is a compelling story about the perils of life at sea, longings for hearth and home, and the poignant memories of love and loss at Christmastime. Hear these and other works by 2019 American Prize Finalist Steve Murray at
BerkshireMusic.net
American Composers Forum congratulates the
National Lutheran Choir and composer
Of the 80 applications the Washington Chorus received, 40 percent came from identifiably diverse candidates, according to Morrissey. “Our community really has responded so favorably and excitedly about Eugene and about the process that we went through. It was really exciting to see excellent candidates that were also a diverse group of people.”
Hiring amid COVID-19 The COVID-19 pandemic has forced all of these choruses to make major adjustments in their searches and transition plans. Video conferencing, already fairly common for first-round interviews preCOVID-19, has become the only option since March. Being forced to use the technology produced an unexpected benefit for the Bach Choir. Black says its geographically dispersed search committee is able to meet more frequently via video, which has allowed the group to gel into a stronger unit. But, like the other choruses still searching, the Bach Choir wants final interviews and auditions to be in person, so the process is on hold. Executive director Bridget George, initially scheduled to retire in December, has agreed to stay on until artistic director Greg Funfgeld’s departure in June 2021. Even though the timetable is unclear, the committee is moving toward the selection of finalists, Black says, but he fears a lengthening crisis will increase the odds that they’ll see some candidates withdraw.
The Peninsula Women’s Chorus had hoped to name a replacement for longtime artistic director Martín Benvenuto in July, following its return from a nowcancelled tour of Spain. Baldwin says she is excited about the candidates she’s meeting via Zoom, but once two or three finalists are chosen, decision-making will have to wait till in-person auditions are possible. Baldwin says the candidates she’s talked to are saying that’s the way they want it too. “It’s obviously not in our control, and so I think everybody understands that we’re just going to have to wait and see.” After a first round of 12 video interviews, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir named its three finalists last August and held its first in-person audition in February. One candidate dropped out, and the pandemic forced postponement of the third finalist’s audition. “We have a contingency plan that if things open up, we could do something in maybe September or October,” says Freeborough. “And so that’s the position we’re in today—of waiting and watching when we can reactivate our search program.”
Leading amid COVID-19 Although no one is certain how long we will have to watch and wait before we can gather in person to sing again, choruses in transition are bound to have an acute perspective on the kind of leadership it will take to get singers back together safely and fulfillingly. Over and over, we hear the challenge of COVID-19 described as unprecedented. If we let the meaning of that adjective sink in, we’re reminded of
Steve Heitzeg on receiving the
2020 Dale Warland Singers Commission Award
composersforum.org The Trenton Children’s Chorus drumming ensemble performs in a spring concert. 22 The Voice, Summer 2020
The Peninsula Women’s Chorus specializes in adventurous programming and is looking for a new artistic leader who will continue that tradition.
the magnitude of the challenge and the perhaps unprecedented degree of ingenuity, fortitude, and flexibility it will require of our leaders—especially those just getting to know new organizations. The crisis also contains an opportunity, says Lee—one that choral leaders can use “to forge new pathways to take the lessons we learned from COVID forward with us. What does that look like in terms of what reenters with us after the crisis, and what do we leave behind?” While no one considers video conferencing a satisfactory tool for auditioning conductors, these choruses and many others have been using Zoom to rehearse, after a fashion, and just chat with each other. The fact that Rogers will continue in his longstanding role as director of choral activities at the University of Michigan is fortunate for TWC, says Morrissey, “in that I think they’ll be also thinking about the forefront of technology and rehearsals, and he might have some things to bring to us that would allow us to do more virtual work together.” When he takes over the chorus on August 1 (a date that has been pushed back once and remains tentative), Rogers says “I want to hear every chorister sing,” which might mean that they audition for him live over Zoom or send him an audio recording “so I can just hear them and get to know them.” As a child, he was taught “you start at
home, and then you go out to the world. I think even more than any other time, with COVID-19 we’ve got to do that. We’ve got to really connect with our folks at home.” For rehearsing, Rogers has several scenarios in mind. In one, he imagines running practices with each section of the chorus in separate rooms, connected by a Zoom-like setup. “They wouldn’t be singing back to me with their microphones on, but they would still be practicing.” Another would temporarily reconfigure what is now a large symphonic chorus into a “multi-ensemble community of artists” with separate chamber choirs rehearsing on different days and perhaps shifting repertoire and performing in small, presumably safer, concert venues. Rogers cautions that these are not plans set in stone, but he believes “we have to rethink choirs, especially symphonic choirs. It might be a year and a half before we’re back to normal.”
A number of possible scenarios are on the table at the Trenton Children’s Chorus as well. New artistic director Vinroy Brown hasn’t started yet, but Mulligan says planning for a response to the pandemic has them spending a lot more time collaborating than they would have otherwise. Brown is in his mid to late 20s, she points out, “and he has a lot of good ideas about how we can stay connected with the latest apps” and create virtual choir-style videos. Even though the singers won’t be able to gather in person next September, and maybe not at all next school year, Mulligan remains committed to holding regular meetings during the regular rehearsal time twice a week. Since March they’ve been conference calls, accessible to some of the kids only in audio, but in spite of the obstacles, the chorus has been trying out collaborative virtual musicmaking. The chorus is applying for grants that would enable an upgrade to u
At the Trenton Children’s Chorus, “there also is a very strong element of youth development because of the population that we serve. We wanted to find somebody that also wanted to work with a lot of at-risk kids and really had a passion for that.” –Kate Mulligan
www.chorusamerica.org 23
Chromebooks with portable wi-fi hotspots and make it possible to share the technology with families that need it. “We’re learning a lot, and if we have to go to a virtual choir, we’ll be able to do it,” says Mulligan. “It’s not choral singing in the traditional sense, she admits, but “as long as we keep them interested in music, we’re still fulfilling our mission.” Despite the current technical limitations, “we have 80-90 percent of our kids enthusiastically joining,” she notes. “They’re thirsty for a sense of community because they’re feeling very isolated.” As they advance toward new leadership, these choruses have found success by using their values as a compass—a lesson, perhaps, for navigating through a pandemic. In Alysia Lee’s mind, the value of community feels especially important right now, as we head toward a post-COVID-19 world. “We have to do it together,” she says. And, she adds, the community needs “strong leaders that have a big vision to guide us. We’re looking for people who have a deep well of knowledge about music, of course, but also have a deep well of knowledge about the
WE HAVE
© J o h n Hryn i u k
Visions of New Leadership
The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir has narrowed its artistic director search to two finalists, but its audition process is on hold because of COVID-19.
human experience.” In the midst of a pandemic, the leadership changes she sees taking place in the choral field give Lee hope. “It’s going to be really exciting for new folks to be stepping into these roles and making shifts and greeting 21st-century audiences with something new. That’s what we want to see.” n
GOOD THINGS FOR YOU!
Visit thebookofrounds.com/freegifts for Free Gifts |
24 The Voice, Summer 2020
Don Lee is the managing editor of the Voice, as well as a media producer, editor, writer, and amateur choral singer who lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. At NPR in Washington DC, he was the executive producer of Performance Today.
EVENTS 2021 Choir Competitions and Festivals
03 04 04 04 05 05 07 07 07 09 10 10 11
15TH INTERNATIONAL CHOIR COMPETITION & FESTIVAL BAD ISCHL March 4-8, 2021 | Bad Ischl, Austria
REGISTRATION DATES Early Bird Regular 2020 AUG
17
VOICES & WINE ALBA April 7-11, 2021 | Alba, Italy (Piedmont)
2020 OCT
26
2020 NOV
11
VOX LUCENSIS - CONCORSO CORALE INTERNAZIONALE April 7-11, 2021 | Lucca, Italy
2020 SEP
2020 NOV
7 VIETNAM INTERNATIONAL CHOIR COMPETITION April 8-12, 2021 | Hoi An, Vietnam
2020 SEP
2020 NOV
2020 SEP
2020 DEC
2020 OCT
2020 DEC
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RIGA SINGS – INTERNATIONAL CHOIR COMPETITION & IMANTS KOKARS CHORAL AWARD May 1-5, 2021 | Riga, Latvia SOUND WAVES LINZ May 20-24, 2021 | Linz, Austria
21 14 28 19
23 16 7
14
11TH WORLD CHOIR GAMES July 2-12, 2021 | Flanders, Belgium
2020 SEP
6 INTERNATIONAL CONDUCTOR‘S SEMINAR WERNIGERODE July 17-20, 2021 | Wernigerode, Germany
2021 FEB
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12TH INTERNATIONAL JOHANNES BRAHMS CHOIR FESTIVAL & COMPETITION July 21-25, 2021 | Wernigerode, Germany
2020 DEC
2021 FEB
4 VOICES FOR PEACE September 26-30, 2021 | Perugia/Assisi, Italy
2021 MAR
2021 MAY
4 KALAMATA INTERNATIONAL CHOIR COMPETITION & FESTIVAL October 7-11, 2021 | Kalamata, Greece
2021 MAR
2021 MAY
10TH CANTA AL MAR – FESTIVAL CORAL INTERNACIONAL October 21-25, 2021 | Calella/Barcelona, Spain
2021 MAR
2021 MAY
TH
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7
15 8
15
TEL AVIV, Israel | March 10-14, 2021 VERONA, Italy | March 25-28, 2021 FLORENCE, Italy | May 20-23, 2021 TIRANA, Albania | June 9-13, 2021 LISBON, Portugal | September 10-13, 2021 PRAGUE, Czech Republic | November 4-7, 2021
17 31 17
2021 JUN
VOICES & WINE MÁLAGA November 17-21, 2021 | Málaga, Spain (Andalusia)
ON STAGE Festivals
22
21
REGISTRATION DATES
19, 2020 2, 2020 JAN 11, 2021 JAN 18, 2021 APR 19, 2021 JUN 14, 2021 OCT
NOV
Get more information now: interkultur.com © Studi43, © Adobe Stock
Singing of Loss, Saving through Memory:
The Healing Power of Secular Requiems Music’s prominence in the sacred sphere has shaped some of the most enduring genres of choral music in Western culture, such as the requiem mass. For more than a century, composers have found resonance in the requiem outside its traditional religious framework—a resonance that has acquired new intensity in recent years. Here is a look at four American composers of today who have adapted the idea of the sacred requiem to secular expressions that commemorate loss and encourage healing. Their music responds to a wide spectrum of inspirations— and perhaps has even more relevance in a world coping with suffering and loss in a new way. B Y T H OM A S M AY
E
ternal rest—requiem aeternam— is the prayed-for destination from which the genre takes its name. The peace of eternity, an unending flatline. The requiem’s scenario conjures above-the-battle acceptance and aims for a serenity that passes all understanding. But even as it gazes into the beyond, the requiem remains earthbound, a vehicle for the grief and fear of abandonment felt by the living left behind. Composers today are turning increasingly to this time-honored format to address not only the pain and anxiety of this world, but the systemic injustices that also cause suffering and loss. Even without relying on the 26 The Voice, Summer 2020
faith-based certainties of old, secular requiems— which can point to such eminent predecessors as Brahms’s German Requiem—emanate the same passion and desire to move listeners as the sacred works of the standard repertoire. The endless varieties of musical expression inspired by the requiem reflect varying positions between two poles: consolation versus rage against the dying of the light. Think of the best-known treatments from the core classical repertoire. Mozart’s Requiem embodies these contrasts within the same work. The settings by Verdi and Fauré stand at either extreme, conveying, respectively, the sound and fury of ultimate loss and the sense of “a happy deliverance,” as the Frenchman described his “lullaby of death.”
Why Write a Requiem Today? If we move outside the sacred sphere from which the requiem first emerged—going back to the early days of Christianity and developed musically through medieval Gregorian chant— what do composers facing today’s challenges find so appealing about the genre—particularly in a secular context? Some secular requiems, such as Morten Lauridsen’s Lux aeterna, have had enormous success (and influence) by evoking the aura of their predecessors in the sacred music world to offer consolation for personal loss. Conductor and scholar Katherine FitzGibbon, artistic director of Resonance Ensemble in Portland, Oregon, wrote her dissertation on the requiem genre. She observes: “When you try to grapple with some of the hard truths in our world, if you are a choral musician, I think you naturally gravitate toward the requiem.” The format of the requiem, “with its text wishing eternal rest for all the lives lost,” serves not only as a powerful musical commemoration but is a vehicle on a grand scale for performers and
“What makes a requiem a requiem, for me, is that remembrance and honoring are the key. Whether it’s personal or an historical event, you are writing in memory of someone or something.” –Damien Geter
top removal mining in the region near where he grew up in Virginia, on the edge of Appalachia: “It hit me like a lightning bolt to read about the devastation caused by these corporate mining practices.” Verdi’s Requiem is a canonical setting that both Geter and Frank single out as a key musical inspiration and even model for their works. Its music so impressed Dale Trumbore when she sang it in college that she determined to write a requiem of her own— not as a religious work, putting the Latin texts to music, but as a vehicle for music’s “potential to meet someone where they are when they are coping with loss.” The result is How to Go On, the largest work to date of this remarkable Los Angeles-based composer, who is frequently drawn to working with words.
Ph otos: © Ra ch el Ha d i a sh a r
audiences to join together in solidarity. For Resonance Ensemble, FitzGibbon commissioned Portland-based composer Damien Geter to write An African American Requiem (originally scheduled to premiere in May as the climax of Resonance’s 2019–20 season). Gabriela Lena Frank, the child of a Peruvian mother of Chinese descent and a father with a Lithuanian-Jewish background, explores one of the defining moments of the modern world in Conquest Requiem: the initial confrontation between the Spanish colonialists and Aztec civilization five centuries ago. This confrontation also led to ecological disaster through the depletion of resources. Michael Conley is another composer who uses the requiem genre to address the environmental angle and the associated destruction of a way of life. He recalls being shattered when, in 2009, he stumbled on an article about mountain-
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Resonance Ensemble (top) has had to postpone the premiere of An African American Requiem by ensemble member Damien Geter (pictured immediately above with Resonance artistic director Katherine FitzGibbon).
The Requiem as Social Justice “What makes a requiem a requiem, for me, is that remembrance and honoring are the key,” says Damien Geter. “Whether it’s personal or an historical event, you are writing in memory of someone or something.” Also in demand as an actor and bass-baritone (he made his Metropolitan Opera debut last fall in the new production of Porgy and Bess), Geter is committed to “responding to the tumult of the world.” His work realizes the mission that Resonance Ensemble set for itself in the aftermath of u www.chorusamerica.org 27
Michael Conley conducts the 2017 premiere of his Appalachian Requiem at Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco.
The Healing Power of Secular Requiems a particularly disturbing series of racist incidents in Portland and across the U.S. in 2017. “We decided that we wanted to dedicate ourselves fully to being actively antiracist in our approach and to help make our community a better place for everyone with music,” FitzGibbon explains. “Our board and audiences have been very receptive to this and hungry for this kind of concert experience that is immersive and tells stories.” Referring to Geter (who also sings with Resonance) as a “musical soul-mate,” FitzGibbon became aware of his gifts as a composer through an a cappella arrangement he made for the ensemble of the spiritual “There’s a Man Goin’ Round.” Geter determined to take on “the responsibility of being an artist by composing something on a bigger scale that was political—something that made a statement, that spoke for those who didn’t have a voice anymore.”
Initially, he thought opera would offer the most suitable platform but then decided to use the format of the requiem to give witness to and commemorate African American victims of racial violence throughout the history of the United States—including not only the historical legacy of slavery and lynching but also contemporary police violence. Although the text is religious,” Geter says “I don’t look at it from a God perspective. The spirituals I use in the piece also have this double meaning and aren’t only about religion.” Geter initially thought of a work of relatively modest, chamber dimensions, but with the encouragement of FitzGibbon, the scope of the project expanded dramatically. Geter was given a far larger apparatus to work with when FitzGibbon managed to enlist an amalgam of community organizations reflecting the city’s diversity in a special partnership, along with the Oregon Symphony. With these expanded resources, Geter wrote a 20-movement work whose
“I never imagined a health epidemic on the scale of COVID-19, which has paralyzed daily life as we know it. After this experience, we will all be changed. Art and its celebration of life will resonate all the more deeply with us.” –Gabriela Lena Frank
28 The Voice, Summer 2020
libretto also includes pieces from civil rights activist Jamilia Land and Ida B. Wells, a founder of the NAACP. In the Libera Me, for example, we also hear excerpts from Wells’s speech of 1909, “Lynching Is Color-Line Murder.” African American writer S. Renee Mitchell, poet-in-residence with Resonance, was commissioned to write a final narration to be spoken over the music of In Paradisum. “We wanted to create contemporary poetic reflections as well as musical ones,” says FitzGibbon. Geter recalls being surprised to discover “how pertinent the Latin texts can be today, though not necessarily from a religious standpoint.” This timeliness is enhanced by the juxtaposition of new texts and poems. His setting of the last words of Eric Garner, an African American who died from suffocation when New York City police put him in a chokehold during a 2014 arrest, is the most harrowing part of the work. The solo tenor sings “I can’t breathe” during a movement within the expansive Dies irae sequence but is gradually drowned out by the percussion section. It’s an unforgettable merging of contemporary events with the traditional requiem framework. [Editor’s note: As this issue of the Voice went to press, protests and demonstrations for racial justice took place across the U.S. and the world following the death of George Floyd, an African American man who was killed by Minneapolis police while being arrested. Among Floyd’s last words were “I can’t breathe.”]
Berkeley-based composer Gabriela Lena Frank completed the Conquest Requiem in 2017, when it was given its world premiere by Andrés Orozco-Estrada and the Houston Symphony and Chorus. Giancarlo Guerrero was scheduled to lead the Nashville Symphony and Chorus in its second round of performances in March, which were also to be the source for the first live recording. Frank’s approach interweaves prayers from the traditional Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead with a new text—the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and poet Nilo Cruz. Cruz’s libretto tells the story of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire during the early 16th century from the perspective of the conquered, focusing on the figures of Malinche (a soprano role) and Martín (baritone), Malinche’s mestizo son by the conquistador Hernán Cortés. A young Nahua woman who was enslaved by the invading Spaniards and taken by Cortés to be his mistress, Malinche has a complex, ambiguous reputation. Frank explains: “She
© Lu ca s H a u sr at h
The Cataclysm of Colonial Conquest
“As a whole, [How to Go On ] grapples with the prospect of confronting our own mortality in the face of our grief over a loved one’s death, the weight of all that.” –Dale Trumbore has been variously viewed as a feminist hero who saved countless lives, a treacherous villain who facilitated genocide, a conflicted victim of forces beyond her control, or as symbolic mother of the new mestizo people.” Frank uses three languages to narrate “the cataclysm that was the Conquest”: Latin, Spanish, and the Nahua of the Aztec world. The Latin requiem’s outlines are clear but foreshortened, leaving more space for Malinche’s narrative to be overlaid, while the omnipresent chorus comments in the manner of Greek tragedy.
The violent, blood-stained consequences of the Conquest remain as unresolved as the racial violence that has accompanied the history Geter commemorates in An African American Requiem. Her score calls for many unusual colors, blends, and gestures, often aiming to generate a sense of wonder, and gives the orchestra a prominence equal to that of the voices, which are often treated in operatic style.
Grieving Loss in Appalachia Even though he had become “a Southern expatriate [then] living in New York City,” Michael Conley channeled his reactions to the disastrous consequences of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia into a requiem—“not a requiem in the traditional sense, with the intent of consoling the living on the death of a fellow human being, but with the idea in mind of lamenting the loss of an old and enduring culture, and an environmental heritage that continues to be under assault.” He prepared his own libretto for Appalachian Requiem by turning to a poetic anthology of women writers from Appalachia spanning from the u
CELEBRATING PHILIP BRUNELLE VocalEssence congratulates Artistic Director & Founder Philip Brunelle on being awarded the Chorus America Distinguished Service Award. For more than five decades, Philip has enriched our community through his inspired music making, commitment to championing composers from around the world, and excellence as a choral leader.
www.chorusamerica.org 29
The Healing Power of Secular Requiems 19th century to the present. “Most of them ended up being contemporary poems and environmentally focused,” says Conley. With its intermingling of the ancient Latin texts and modern verse, Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem is a frequent model for secular requiems. Conley, however, takes the idea even further by omitting the Latin prayers entirely from the sung text. Conley uses the familiar names (Dies Irae, Sanctus, etc.) only to provide “a frame of reference for how this work is intended to mirror the traditional outline of a requiem mass.” Other texts include a poem by Wendell Berry and hymns from such sources as The Sacred Harp and Southern Harmony. He organized these texts in a way that progresses, like the traditional requiem, “from grief and tragedy to consolation and hope.” Also a choral conductor and organist, Conley has focused his composition mostly on choral music, songs, and vocal chamber music and plans to undertake his first opera. For Appalachian Requiem, he wanted to write a piece drawing on the style of shape note hymns as a unifying device. The chant and poetry of Cherokee Indians are another impetus and bring the “original people from this land” into the requiem in the section corresponding to the Sanctus— “the turning point in the piece.” Conley began with chamber versions but was able to realize his initial, fuller vision for chorus
Appalachian Requiem is “not a requiem in the traditional sense, with the intent of consoling the living on the death of a fellow human being, but with the idea in mind of lamenting the loss of an old and enduring culture, and an environmental heritage that continues to be under assault.” –Michael Conley and orchestra in the version he introduced in 2017 at Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, where he now serves as music director. Conley doesn’t think of his Appalachian Requiem as an entirely secular piece, since sacred texts are embedded in it. He considers it “a different lens for looking at what ‘sacred and secular’ means. It’s all about context. The blurring of that line to me is very interesting.” He chose the requiem form because it has privileged status in the canon: “So it makes sense that this is what you go to when wanting to make a statement.”
Asking Questions For How to Go On, Los Angeles-based composer Dale Trumbore drew on what she sees as the themes treated by the traditional requiem: “concern with what happens after we die and what we cannot know. As a whole, it grapples with the prospect of confronting our own mortality in the face of
our grief over a loved one’s death, the weight of all that.” Put another way: How to Go On is “more about asking questions than being able to know any definite answers. When we lose someone, the question we ask is: ‘How can we go on?’” The title itself ambiguously suggests both question and answer. Indeterminacy is built into the structure of this eight-part a cappella work from 2016, which has been widely performed around the U.S. since it was commissioned by the Southern California-based Choral Arts Initiative and its artistic director Brandon Elliott (who have also recorded it for the anthology How to Go On: The Choral Works of Dale Trumbore). The composer allows performers to alter the order in which the movements are presented, with the exception that the work must end with her setting of a poem by Amy Fleury (“When at last I join the democracy of dirt”). This flexibility, Trumbore believes, reflects the psychology of coping with loss: “When we move through grief, we don’t have control. It can be beautiful to lose that control.” An acknowledged agnostic, Trumbore— who studied with Morten Lauridsen— immersed herself in collections of poetry by writers she admired. Along with the contemporary American Amy Fleury, these include Barbara Crooker, Laura Foley, and the Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön. Like Conley, she uses no texts from the traditional Latin requiem mass in her eight-movement work. Indeed, How to Go On is even further removed from any sacred associations and “is less grounded in the afterlife” than might be expected from a requiem.
The Way Forward Brandon Elliott leads the Choral Arts Initiative in the 2016 premiere of Dale Trumbore’s How to Go On. 30 The Voice, Summer 2020
In the words of the title poem by Barbara Crooker, “How can we go on, knowing the end of the story?” Humanity is just beginning to process the immense losses caused
Z
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by COVID-19. Within the world of music alone, the pandemic has had devastating effects—and many are wondering precisely this: How do we go on? The fallout of the coronavirus lockdown has had uncanny relevance for Frank’s Conquest Requiem as well. After the Nashville Symphony performances had to be cancelled, Frank recalled how she had hoped that the message of the Conquest Requiem “could speak to an array of suffering and the resilience of the living. I never imagined a health epidemic on the scale of COVID-19, which has paralyzed daily life as we know it. After this experience, we will all be changed. Art and its celebration of life will resonate all the more deeply with us.” The Conquest Requiem happened to be the first Nashville Symphony project that had to be cancelled in mid-season owing to the sudden closures. Music director Giancarlo Guerrero believes the coronavirus situation has underscored the piece’s relevance for today even more strikingly. Conquest Requiem mourns “the tragic implications of new diseases brought by the colonialists that made a whole society disappear. It’s a requiem that considers
Tucker Biddlecombe leads the Nashville Symphony Chorus in a Zoom rehearsal of Gabriela Lena Frank’s Conquest Requiem. Originally planned for March, the Nashville performance was cancelled because of COVID-19 and will be rescheduled.
the first real example of globalization, the negative things along with positive ones that are still having repercussions.” The closures came before the chorus and orchestra had been able to rehearse together, but the choir has continued with rehearsals via Zoom. “When the Conquest Requiem
Medieval Byzantine Chant from Constantinople For a thousand years, Hagia Sophia was the largest enclosed space in the world. As the women and men of Cappella Romana sing, Hagia Sophia’s
Thomas May, is a writer, critic, educator, and translator. Along with essays regularly commissioned by such institutions as the Metropolitan Opera, the San Francisco Symphony, and the Juilliard School, he is the English editor for the Lucerne Festival and a critic for Musical America and the Seattle Times.
THE REVIEWS ARE IN! #1 DEBUT/TOP TEN FOR 12 WEEKS ON BILLBOARD CAPPELLA ROMANA’S 24TH RELEASE
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is rescheduled,” says Frank, “I know the orchestra and choir and soloists will own its message even more than before.” As of this writing. An African American Requiem has been rescheduled to be presented for the first time on January 22, 2021 (with an unprecedented live, bi-coastal simulcast to maximize access). “I can only imagine that a requiem will have added poignance, after so much loss around the globe, including losses in our own country that have disproportionately affected African Americans,” FitzGibbon reflects. She says that rehearsing the piece, even over Zoom, has “felt like a small balm in this difficult time” and continued to provide a sense of shared purpose. “It has felt like something sacred to be working toward this premiere.” n
“As to the performance, it is difficult to imagine better… the haunting beauty of the music makes this a worthy investment.” Fanfare
“It’s Art, it’s history…it’s Magic!” HRAudio “music as valuable to our understanding and appreciation of the art of the Byzantine Empire as a restored mosaic or reconstructed cathedral.” OpenCulture
“allows our ears to travel to a place where these chants have not been heard for centuries.” American Record Guide “A stellar release” Blu-ray.com
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www.chorusamerica.org 31
ACDA 2021 March 17-20 Dallas, Texas
Dallas Symphony Chorus
Simon HalseyBelshazzar's Feast
World Youth Choir
Invited Headliners/ Ensembles include: Formosa Singers - Taiwan
Tenebrae
Entre Voces, Coro Nacional de Cuba
Voctave
TMEA All-State Mixed Choir
insights
How to Be Of, By, and for All: An Interview with Nina Simon Nina Simon’s work as an author, change leader, and activist is all about creating more open, generous, community-focused organizations. She is the founder and CEO of OF/BY/FOR ALL, a nonprofit organization that provides tools to help civic and cultural organizations matter more to more people. Today, over 50 organizations are using the OF/BY/FOR ALL framework to build relationships, relevance, and impact in their communities.
I
n advance of her plenary during the Chorus America Virtual Conference, Simon spoke with Chorus America president and CEO Catherine Dehoney about what it means to hold space for change, the importance of getting specific about the communities that matter most to your organization, and what successful community-based cultural organizations look like in a post-pandemic world.
I love that your job title includes the word “spacemaker.” What does that term mean to you? There are some times when we lead change from a mode of NS: being a risk taker: being the one making the creative thing, getting out ahead, and trying things out. And then there’s a way that we lead change by being space makers, by creating the supportive space and permissive space for others to bring their wildest ideas forward. I probably spent all of my 20s identifying as a risk taker and really being proud to be the maverick that was kicked under the table by my boss when I came up with ideas and things like that. And then when I became a director—in my case, at first a museum director—I quickly realized that the most powerful way to make transformative CD:
change was by making space for others to bring their creative visions forward. OF/BY/FOR ALL is an organization that exists to support others. It’s never going to be that we made the change at a given theater, or library, or choral group in our network. But, if we’re doing our jobs right, we’re creating a space that is electrifying, that sets people in a direction of being able to make positive change. It’s a different idea than servant leadership because it’s not about just going anywhere our team or members want to go. It’s about holding space for and creating conditions for a certain kind of creative practice and change to be possible.
“We owe it to ourselves and the futures of our organizations to really think about where we want to go. How can we devote some time to think about who we want to be on the other side of this?” –Nina Simon
What led you to found OF/BY/FOR ALL? What is unique about your framework and approach? As I mentioned, I was a museum director of a small museum. NS: We went through a radical transformation from a very traditional institution with a struggling business model to reinvent ourselves as a thriving and very financially sustainable community center. And just a couple years into doing that work, as I was writing about it and speaking about it, people started asking more about the how. I felt like my next mission and the cause I wanted to devote myself to was equipping other would-be change makers and other organizations around the world not to follow our exact playbook, but to use the same principles we did. When we think about community work or equity work or inclusive work, there’s a lot out there about the why and the what, but there’s less available around the how. We wanted to create a program and a set of concrete tools that could help those who are inspired and energized in a direction of inclusion to really start doing that work. If you want to become welcoming to people who have not felt welcome in the past, one of the most effective ways to do it is to become more representative of them and more co-created by them. And if you can become of and by a community, they are much more likely to be enthusiastically involved, and you’re much more likely to be successful at sustainably becoming for them. I’m somebody who really learns by doing. And I think, particularly for white people, we can be so nervous that we’re going to make a mistake that we never try, and we plan forever. Yes, you need some concepts. But applying those concepts and learning from how you succeed—and also the experimental risks you take and the mistakes you make along the way—can be very powerful, both in doing the learning and in getting addicted to what is great and successful about this work. CD:
You started off in museums and place-based cultural institutions, but OF/BY/FOR ALL works with many different kinds of organizations. What similarities do you see in community-centered work across art forms? u CD:
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insights From the beginning we were always trying to make tools that were very flexible and adaptable to different contexts. One of the ideas that I think has been most transferrable as a mindset shift and a new focus is getting really specific about who the communities are that matter most to you. It doesn’t really matter whether that is a community of choral groups of a certain size in a certain country, or whether that’s a community of moms who like to sing to their children at night, or whether it’s a community of people who live in this neighborhood and are involved with their church. How can you take an asset-based approach to understand what matters most to those folks, what they’re proud of, what they’re good at, and then how might you build something together? That sequence of getting clear on community, getting curious about what matters most to them, and then building something based on your respective assets and interests can happen no matter what kind of programming you’re doing. I think that many people have that impulse of “How can I show up?” But in some ways, it’s even more important right now to then say: “And where and with whom does it make the most sense?” If you don’t start by getting clear about who matters most to you, you’re going to be overwhelmed very quickly. You’re going to potentially do amazing things and still feel bad about it because you weren’t aligned with what mattered most. NS:
Near the beginning of the pandemic, you wrote about how the urge to take the same things we’ve always done and quickly pivot to delivering them virtually can distract arts organizations from realizing their potential to deliver true community value. What do you see as the danger of this approach? I wrote that piece not to wag my NS: finger at anybody but to process my own immediate reaction of feeling this pent-up urge to do something. I found I really had to hold myself back and resist that impulse. And it was hard. If I were still running a cultural organization, it might have been impossible to resist it. But I will say that the ideas that we’ve been able to develop because we gave ourselves a few weeks to get clear on who we cared about and to have conversations are so much better than the initial ideas I had. CD:
34 The Voice, Summer 2020
The OF/BY/FOR ALL network at its 2019 member retreat
And if I’d gone for those ideas, I would never have had the time to develop the things that I believe are going to be more useful that we’re now doing. It’s not so much that delivering digital is bad, but I think that this crisis is going to last for a very long time. We owe it to ourselves and the futures of our organizations to really think about where we want to go. How can we devote some time to think about who we want to be on the other side of this? What do we think is our best, most strategic attack? And how can we get really creative about what that looks like? The tools OF/BY/FOR ALL is building right now are predicated on the belief that for many, this will be a summer of reinvention and a summer of reimagining. And I hope that people get to a place where it’s like, “Ok, we know what these next few months are going to look like. Now let’s give ourselves some permission to dream.” What are your thoughts about what cultural organizations and community-centered work look like in a post-COVID-19 world? We’re all being forced to change to NS: some extent now. Something we have to all ask ourselves really honestly is: Who among us just kind of wishes we could go back to what we had, and who among us wishes we could create something different? If you come to the conclusion that reimagining is necessary, but you do not yet want it, you need to make space to mourn what you had and to commit to CD:
creating something new. Because if you’re speaking the language of rethinking, but you’re secretly hoping somebody could wave a magic wand and restore you to what you were, you will not be successful in rethinking. I think that organizations that have just tried to hunker down and then come back— some of them will come back and some of them won’t. Those that do come back, I think will be less relevant, which will make them both less appealing to potential participants as well as to potential funders. But those who mourn what they’ve lost and give themselves permission to dramatically reimagine—those organizations are going to look ways that we can’t imagine right now, but they are going to be well-funded, and people are going to be enthusiastic about participating. So what are the biggest challenges ahead? Is one of them resisting this hunkering down? Here are some questions that I think NS: could either accelerate reinvention or could be real barriers. Can you get a team together that is willing to re-envision the future? Can you come up with really creative ideas about the possibilities? Can you push yourself? Can you be courageous and outside your comfort zone? Can you let go? Can you do that grieving and that unlearning? Can you structure all these great ideas you’ve come up with into a focused kind of plan? Can you build alignment around that plan? Can you sell that plan? CD:
I think one of the most pernicious questions is: Can you stay focused on change even as things start to go back to normal? Because the impulse to go back to what was, if it’s available to us, is going to stay very seductive. Even a leader who is very oriented towards change will feel pressure from others around them who are asking, “Couldn’t we go back?” I think that that is a huge leadership challenge at this moment. What about the biggest opportunities? The thing I encourage organizations NS: to do is to figure out what their assets are. Are you a team that’s really creative, that always has a million ideas? Are you resilient? Some organizations have been through a real crisis before and know that they could do it again. Do you have a strategic plan that really guides you? Do you have strong community partnerships? Thinking very broadly about the assets we have beyond just cash in the bank and how we can creatively deploy them—that’s where I start to go from feeling overwhelmed and stressed to feeling some agency and some excitement about what’s possible. There are good things getting uncovered CD:
right now—like, for example, the idea that when people are in crisis, one of the ways they love to heal together is to make art. One of the ways they love to heal together is to sing. I’m sure you’ve been saying that forever. But that’s not been in the news the way the balcony singing from Italy is in the news right now. Many people are using art as a way to connect and heal, and maybe there’s an opportunity to build something out of that. The other thing, just on a very practical level, that I’ve been thinking about is what are some of the first steps we imagine might happen as we move forward? For example, are we going to be able to get together in groups of 10 before we can get together in groups of 100? And what might that mean about how we set ourselves up? OF/BY/FOR ALL helps “civic and cultural organizations matter more to more people.” What could choruses do right now to matter more? I come back to what I said before: NS: When I think about mattering more to more people, the place I start first is, which people? Which communities matter most to us? What matters to them? CD:
If a chorus said, “The people we care about are kids who don’t have enough to do during the day,” or “The people we care about are people who are feeling even more isolated and lonely,” or “The people we care about are health workers”—I can think of a million very different things I would do if I chose to focus on one of those communities or another. And you don’t choose to focus totally in a vacuum. You might say, “Which assets do we have that could serve one of these communities versus another?” Now is a time that generosity and creativity are redounding to a perception of greater relevance and value. That’s always true. But especially now, when it’s harder to be generous, it is even more distinctive when you see those who are doing it. There are two negatives of hunkering down. One is you rob yourself of the ability to envision something truly transformative for the future. But two is you become invisible. Many organizations, as we were talking about earlier, are trying to demonstrate visibility with digital activity. But I think that the visibility that’s going to be most apparent is the visibility that is highly relevant. And that matters to somebody. n
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Virtual Conference Sponsors, Funders, and Exhibitors
Thank You
Chorus America gratefully acknowledges these businesses and organizations for their support of the Virtual Conference. Lead Sponsor
Supporting Sponsor
Closing Plenary: Lift Every Voice for Change Major Sponsor
Patron Sponsors
Advocate Sponsors
CELEBRATING ALL THAT CONNECTS US
Planning Strategically: Repositioning for a New Reality
Opening Networking Event One-on-One Consultations Composer Showcase
Diversity, Equity, Access and Inclusion during a Global Health Crisis and Beyond
Contributing Sponsor Plenary—The King’s Singers: Finding Harmony
Plenary—Nina Simon: Choruses that Are Of, By, and For All Conference Farewell and Family Sing
First-Time Attendee Orientation Opening Plenary—Brett Egan: What’s Next? Contemplating Recovery
Daily Sings 36 The Voice, Summer 2020
General Sponsors
Conference Exhibitors ACFEA Tour Consultants Berkshire Choral International Cathedral Choral Society Chorus Connection Distinguished Concerts International, New York (DCINY) ECS Publishing Group Encore Tours Harmony Helper Karen Siegel, Composer Manhattan Concert Productions Michael Bussewitz-Quarm, Composer MUSICFOLDER.com MyMusicFolders.com October Project San Francisco Girls Chorus
Be Part of Our
Commission Consortiums
W
ith Chorus America’s Commission Consortiums, your chorus can be part of commissioning a new work from a leading composer and premiering that work in your community. This year, we’re thrilled to offer three exciting commissioning opportunities.
The Choral Arts Society of Washington
A piece for SATB chorus from Deke Sharon
The Washington Chorus Yale Institute of Sacred Music
A piece for SATB chorus from Karen Thomas special Underwriting
A piece for treble chorus from Sarah Quartel
Chorus America is deeply grateful to the following funders for their generous support of the Conference:
by ster Regi ust 14! Aug
John C. Griswold Family Foundation Popplestone Foundation
More details at bit.ly/CACommissions
In partnership with Classical Movements, the international concert tour company
Listing current as of June 8, 2020.
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www.chorusamerica.org 37
Chorus America
Honors Award Winners
E
ach year, Chorus America’s Awards Program honors excellence in the choral field. In 2020, we presented 10 awards that recognized a broad range of achievements, including artistic excellence, innovative community engagement programs, adventurous programming, generous philanthropy, and distinguished service. Visit youtube.com/ chorusamerica to view video tributes to many of the award winners. Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence (Honoring a children and youth chorus)
Young Women’s Choral Projects of San Francisco (pictured top right) Chorus America Distinguished Service Award Philip Brunelle (pictured below)
Louis Botto Award for Innovative Action and Entrepreneurial Zeal Ruben Valenzuela (pictured above) Brazeal Wayne Dennard Award Jacksonville Children’s Chorus (pictured below)
Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral Art Kent Tritle (pictured middle right)
38 The Voice, Summer 2020
Kent Tritle
Chorus America/ASCAP Alice Parker Award Baltimore Choral Arts Society (pictured above) Chorus America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming Border CrosSing (pictured below) Tonality (pictured right) Cantabile Youth Singers of Silicon Valley (pictured bottom) u
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Visit us at chorusamerica.org/support www.chorusamerica.org 39
Chorus America Officers Chair Brian Newhouse Community Leader (MN) Treasurer John Earls Prospect House (OH) Secretary Marie Bucoy-Calavan University of Akron (OH)
Members of the Board
Anton Armstrong St. Olaf College (MN) Jeffrey Barnett Dorsal Capital Management LLC (CA) Charles Berardesco Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington (DC) Dashon Burton Professional Singer (NY) Roland Carter University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (TN) Iris Derke Distinguished Concerts International, New York (NY) Rollo Dilworth Temple University (PA) Mary Doughty Mauch Conductor and Community Organizer (IL) Morna Edmundson Elektra Women’s Choir (BC) Todd Estabrook Handel and Haydn Society (MA) Miguel Ángel Felipe University of Arizona (AZ) Corty B. Fengler Cappella SF (CA) David Hayes Mannes School of Music (NY) Elfrieda Heinrichs The Heinrichs Foundation (ON) Robert Istad Pacific Chorale; California State University Fullerton (CA) Craig Jessop Utah State University (UT) Anne Keiser Choral Arts Society of Washington (DC) Robyn Reeves Lana Cincinnati Youth Choir (OH) Mark Lawson ECS Publishing Group (MO) Alysia Lee Maryland State Department of Education; Sister Cities Girlchoir (MD) Marcela Molina Tucson Girls Chorus (AZ) David Morrow Morehouse College (GA) Linda Moxley Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (MD) Steven Neiffer Los Angeles Master Chorale (CA) John Nuechterlein Community Leader (MN) Elizabeth Núñez Young People’s Chorus of New York City (NY) Dianne Peterson The Washington Chorus (DC) Molly Buzick Pontin Pacific Chorale (CA) Andrea Ramsey Composer, Conductor, and Music Educator (MO) Eugene Rogers University of Michigan (MI) Diana Sáez Towson University (MD) Karen P. Thomas Seattle Pro Musica (WA) Anthony Trecek-King Conductor and Educator (MA) Duain Wolfe Chicago Symphony Chorus (IL); Colorado Symphony Chorus (CO)
40 The Voice, Summer 2020
Dale Warland Singers Commission Award Presented in partnership with the American Composers Forum
National Lutheran Choir (pictured above) and Steve Heitzeg, composer (inset)
Michael Korn Founders Award for Philanthropic Contribution to the Arts The NAMM Foundation
Chorus America Education and Community Engagement Award (Honoring the best collaborative program)
Key Chorale (pictured below)
Advertising Index ACDA Choral Journal................................................. 32 American Composers Forum...................................... 22 Bard College Conservatory of Music......................... 10 Berkshire Choral International...................................C2 Boston Gay Men’s Chorus.......................................... 21 Capella Romana......................................................... 31 Chorus America........................................15, 17, 37, 39 ECS Publishing.............................................................. 6 Hal Leonard Corporation.............................................. 2 Interkultur................................................................... 25 Messiah College.........................................................C4 Michael Bussewitz-Quarm......................................... 20
Musica Sacra................................................................ 7 MUSICFOLDER.com...................................................... 7 October Project........................................................... 24 Pacific Chorale............................................................ 13 Pacific International Choral Festivals........................ 35 Steve Murray.............................................................. 22 University Music Service........................................... 39 Utah State University................................................... 9 VocalEssence.............................................................. 29 Washington Chorus....................................................C3 World Singing Day..................................................... 20 Young Women’s Choral Projects of San Francisco.... 21
Together. We Can. “BY singing togEthER, WE cAn mAKE A PositiVE DiFFEREncE With ouR communitiEs.” —EugEnE RogERs; incoming ARtistic DiREctoR, thE WAshington choRus thEWAshingtonchoRus.oRg #togEthERWEcAn Photo BY suDEEP stuDios
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