he 22nd annual Spring
Concert of the Los Angeles Children’s Choir under the
direction of maestra Anne Tomlinson, was held in
beautifully refurbished Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena
before an enthusiastic audience comprised primarily of
family and friends.
Occasionally, a music critic is confronted
with conflict of interest situations, and as your faithful
scribe occasionally trains soloists for the Paulist Choristers
of California located across town in Westwood, that issue arose
on this occasion. That said, personal acquaintanceship or
friendship with various LACC staff members and my appreciation
for the level of professionalism that the 225-member choir
achieves, serves to offset any bias that may be implied in any
review of LACC performances.
I know before going to an LACC concert that
I am going to hear so-called “head voice” vocalism and except
for the young women’s group called the Chamber Singers, I expect
to hear a monochromatic, fragile sound from younger members of
the various groups. I will also expect absolute blend in every
note of every phrase, an achievement that requires many hours of
training.
But blend at all costs has a price to be
paid, even in the service of “protecting our children’s voices.”
For instance, the minority boys’ true voices are never allowed
to be developed to their full value. The beauty of a boy alto’s
voice is apparently not a sound cherished in this choir. Boys
born with oboe, violin and trumpet quality voices are suppressed
to sound like the prevailing flutes of the other gender.
Perhaps a slightly lesser consequence of
the absolute blend approach is that every item on the programme
sounds exactly like the previous and next one. Stylistic and
historically correct interpretational differentiations cannot be
detected and although note-perfect, LACC’s Bach sounds just like
LACC’s Schubert, a pity, since those stylistic differences are
important in the study of music, its trends and its history.
On a programmatic level, LACC’s performance
at Ambassador Auditorium was fine. There were the usual
logistical problems that one would expect when moving 225 or so
youngsters on and off the stage in various groupings. Concert
items revealed a nice cross-section of music drawn from many
periods, including arrangements of music written by Marcello,
Schubert, di Lasso, Bach, Pergolesi, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy,
Debussy, Schumann and Purcell, an American composer, Malcolm
Dalglish (a former chorister with the American Boychoir) and the
formidable 85-year old Englishman, Sir David Willcocks. There
were arrangements by Ruth Watson Henderson, Hamilton Harty, Lyn
Williams, someone credited as “McRae,” Kathy Armstrong, Jing
Ling Tam and Stephen Hatfield. A strange attribution was
Schubert’s familiar “An die Musik” but credited in the
programme as an arrangement by that doyen of American children’s
choirs, Doreen Rao. From Row M in orchestra, and listening
closely to both the unison choir singing the song meant to be
sung by a soloist, one could detect no German words or music of
choir or piano that were distinguishable from Schubert’s
original composition.
Texts sung in French, Latin, German and
Mandarin Chinese were quite accurately pronounced for the most
part. An occasional umlaut or getting the exact combination of
mouth shapes to form the Chinese vowel that lies halfway between
“L” and “R” proved a bit too difficult. Missing was intensity
of vowel color. As is usual in American choirs, final “R”
sounds were eliminated entirely, which when applied to a foreign
language can result in a change in the text’s meaning. And the
length of the “O” vowel in the German world “entflossen” is
shortened by its sandwiched position between the
double-consonants “FL” and “SS.” Picky things, unimportant to
most, but such little errors would identify this choir as
non-German speaking.
Two living composers were present to
receive plaudits from audience and choir alike: Paul Gibson,
whose “L’amour de moy” (performed by the Intermediate
Choir, Mandy Brigham, director) and Caroline Park, whose
“Etch” (performed by the Concert Choir, Ms. Tomlinson,
director) were commissioned into being by LACC. The Gibson
work, accompanied by oboe, is an accessible 2- and 3-part treble
composition that is sure to be sung often in American Choral
Directors Association-affiliated choirs, and that should make
Mr. Gibson a wealthy man, if similar ACDA-approved octavos have
proven a reliable industry for the production of wealth.
The Park item is not likely to receive an
ACDA stamp of approval. “Etch” was identified in the
program as “a sound project conceived from intuitive imagery.”
Does one consider compositions of the past to be written from a
pseudo-intellectual, quasi-transcendental stretch of imagination
in search of an original idea? Whatever the logic behind a need
for a composition of this sort might be (based on music formed
by imagery), the kids nailed it – insofar as at least one
listener without a score could deduce. The choir’s
bottom-to-top ear training in the Kodály Method was working
overtime as half-tones and what sounded like quarter-tone
intervals were negotiated in the most nails-on-chalkboard series
of chords and other sounds interrupted by a nearly inaudibly
spoken text (reproduced here in original formatting):
to blink
to disappear – to
come back,
knowing
having already been
having already felt : [sensed]
The last word was so softly and
indistinctly spoken, it came across as downright lascivious.
The piece is oh-so-precious and simply alien to an audience,
who nevertheless rewarded the composer and her creation with
enthusiastic applause. But will they buy the recording?
Hands down, everyone’s favorite item was
performed by the 17 young women of the Chamber Singers, four of
whom were singing their last song with LACC before departing for
college. Their interpretation of Anders Edenroth’s “Chili
con carne” provided clever, humorous commentary on the
preparation and mastication of cuisine from south of the border.
“The boys of the LACC”, drawn from all LACC
choir levels, were presented moments after the “girls of the
Apprentice Choir” with a quasi-masculine “Song of the Three
Mariners” (a PC-laundered yo-ho-ho, and all that) by Harty to
sing. Presented side by side, so to speak, the two choruses
sounded exactly alike, a consequence of “perfect blend.”
LACC has been highly acclaimed throughout
its history for the “professional” appearance of its children on
stage. They are perfectly behaved – they do not twitch, fiddle
or talk. They appear out of another era, one absent iPhones and
GameBoys. They sit and stand on risers, walk on and off stage,
and line themselves up in a variety of aspects in near-perfect
unity. This is not normal, and the parents love it.
One lives in fading hope that sometime in
the not-too-distant future, one or more male directors will be
included in the 30-member, nearly all-female staff to start the
process of developing the young male voices that spend an equal
amount of time with their peers, but who are not provided a full
measure of training. It seems that after 22 years of the
choir’s existence, informed male voice builders are not desired
in this organization to serve the needs and opportunities of its
boys, particularly during the period in which voice change is
operational. One also understands that the perfect blend for
which the LACC is so famous would be compromised if the boys
were allowed to sing in the fullness of their natural voices.
But gone also would be the fragile sound that now marks the
choir, replaced by a sturdy, rich and colorful sound from
fully-trained throats.
There are few remaining boys’ choirs in
America, but one has existed in Pasadena since 1925. LACC minus
the boys would still sound the same, and the boys would receive
the sort of training, if not the public exposure, that they
truly deserve.
- Reviewed by Douglas Neslund
Related link:
www.lachildrenschorus.org
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June 7
L.A. Opera- La Rondine
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Classical Voice:
L.A. Opera "La Rondine" Review
L.A. Times:
Keri-Lynn Wilson conducts La Rondine
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June 8
San Luis Obispo
Symphony debuts at Disney Hall |
PROGRAM: The Music of Craig H. Russell
(b.1951) - Gate City: A Prayer for Peace, Concierto Romántico
(José María
Gallardo del Rey, guitar), Ecos armónicos
(Kathleen Lenski, violin), Rhapsody for Horn and Orchestra
(Richard Todd, French horn). San Luis Obispo Symphony.
Michael Nowak, conductor
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t’s a risky business: a regional
orchestra from California’s Central Coast; a composer
whose distinctly non-flashy, down-home style is at odds
with the glitter and bombast of the Hollywood film music;
last but not least, all new music on the program (gasp!)
That its Disney Hall concert debut was a rip-roaring
success testified not only to the strength of San Luis
Obispo Symphony’s performance, but also to Craig Russell’s
music striking a chord in the hearts of the audience and
critics alike.
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That’s more than can be said about most
new music written these days. Frequently, what you get is
concert promoters sneaking a questionable new piece into a
program of Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart. You have no choice
but to suffer through the insipid appetizer in order to get
to the main course, as it were, unless you are lucky to be
stuck on the 405 Freeway and arrived late.
Craig H. Russell (b.1951) is a
professor/ musicologist at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. On the
surface, his music possesses all of the charms and good
humor reflecting this idyllic region of California, and none
of the experimental esotericism associated with academia
(something that, say, a Stanford professor might write.)
His music shows diverse influences of American and European
classical music, as well as jazz and California missions.
Take a work like Gate City: A Prayer
for Peace (1993), for example. It opens with the earthy
sound of a country fiddle, then the woodwinds intone a hymn
of great calm and spirituality, evoking the shimmering
beauty of the Appalachian mountains in early morning hours.
It’s a memorable homage to the composer’s home town of Gate
City, Virginia, as well as to Copeland’s Appalachian
Spring. The SLO Symphony strings, led by concertmistress
Pam Dassenko, played with a sweet and luminous
texture throughout.
 Concierto
Romántico (1977) for guitar and orchestra was a student
work dedicated to Russell’s teacher Emilio Pujol. The
three-movement concerto contains a fugue, a theme and
variations, two cadenzas, references to Brahms (second
movement), Copeland (first movement) – enough materials to
fill two or three concertos. Despite the abundance of
‘learned’ elements, the music flows organically and
spontaneously always in a jovial spirit. On the guitar was
José María Gallardo del Rey, a serious musician who
combined technical mastery with high poetry whether playing
a simple cantilena or a complicated multi-voiced fugue.
Later on, he was able to loosen up when playing the conga in
the Rhapsody for Horn and Orchestra.
Ecos armónicos (2007) explores
the sounds of California missions, containing, among other
things, choirs (“Gaudeamus”, “Alleluia”), a march, a violin
toccata and a fandango – an interesting mixture of the
sacrée and the profane. Violinist Kathleen
Lenski’s playing was warm, inviting, and robust as
required by the music. Her instrument, Joseph Joachim’s
1775 Gaudagnini, sounded glorious in the radiant acoustics
of the Disney Hall.
 Saving
the best till the last, Russell’s delightfully jazzy
Rhapsody for Horn and Orchestra (1999) contains a hint
of Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto, and more than a dollop
of Jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie “Bird” Parker
(hence Movement 2’s nickname “Dizzy Bird”). The style is,
again, eclectic, but the jazzy and latin undercurrents are
unmistakably present throughout. French horn soloist
Richard Todd displayed his uncanny ability to mimic
different sounds (be it a clarinet, a saxophone, or a fire
truck) in a feat of great bravura and abandon. In the
quieter, more introspective passages, Mr. Todd also
delighted with a serenely beautiful singing line. At one
point, the French horn engaged in a duel of virtuosos with
saxophonist Marshall Wright, whose thrilling
contribution garnered him a round of applause from the
enthusiastic audience.
Fresh from its tour of New York and
Sidney, Australia, the San Luis Obispo Symphony played well
under conductor Michael Nowak. The sonorities were
full and beautifully balanced across all sections of the
orchestra, with the robust lower strings and mellow horns
being particularly memorable. As California’s regional
orchestras go, the SLO Symphony can go toe to toe with the
Berkeley Symphony, the Pacific Symphony and the Pasadena
Symphony.
Like Joseph Haydn and his Esterhazy
Orchestra, which allowed him to experiment with the
symphonic form, professor Craig Russell is lucky to have the
SLO Symphony at his disposal – a working lab for his new
music that many composers would envy.
Russell’s music speaks the 20th-Century
language but is draped in an old- fashioned garb, cleverly
concealing the art that lies within. Who would have thought
new Classical music could be so much fun? More than a
concert, the music of Craig Russell deserves an entire
festival all its own
- Reviewed by Truman C. Wang
Related link:
www.slosymphony.com
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June 28
The Harvard Glee Club
visits Disney Hall |
PROGRAM: Works by
Hildegard von Bingen, Josquin des Prez, Palestrina, Dominick
Argento (West Coast Premiere), Stephen Foster, Benjamin
Britten, et. al. |
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n the everyman transition from
boyhood treble through adolescent trouble to collegiate
tenor or baritone, the human voice blooms into a musical
instrument with vast potential. Sixty gleaming,
exceptionally well-trained and -directed young men from
Harvard University displayed a wide ranging program of 23
items spanning the ages from the medieval to the football
field, a cornucopia of music sung in nearly straight-toned
(i.e., unwobbly) but bang-on pitch that never failed in
its focus and musicality, an excellent contingent
celebrating the Glee Club’s gala 150th
Anniversary year. One well remembers its 2002 visit to Los
Angeles, host city to the American Choral Directors
Association national convention, at which time the Glee
Club performed in nearby Cathedral of our Lady of the
Angels.
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A fairly large audience well
represented by alumni and hosting families greeted the
future biologists, sociologists, chemists, astronomers,
governmental employees and computer scientists (now there’s
a moving target) and their doughty leader of thirty years,
Jameson N. Marvin, who entrusted his choir to the
Associate Conductor, Kevin C. Leong, and Assistant
Conductor, Michael C. McGaghie, for one song each,
both of whom directed with conducting styles of stiff,
fussy, self-conscious and awkward gestures revealing a
learned technique in place of inherent talent. Dr. Marvin
graciously ceded the podium to these aspiring conductors for
the pleasure of “driving” this Rolls Royce of a male choir
as an encouragement to careers in music education, if not
performance.
Dr. Marvin’s own conducting techniques
adjusted to the needs of the moment: minimal, requiring
focused attention, or grand, arms swinging about in
cardio-workout circles, always exploring the border of
dynamic possibility that made the evening so attractively
rewarding for singers and audience alike. These young men
are fortunate to have such a solid musician for a director,
and a genuinely nice man and stage presence to boot. It is
clear that the good professor, a native of nearby Glendale
(how ever did West Coast academia overlook this man?) is far
from needing to retire, despite his tri-decade tenure in the
position. It is clear that his close association with so
many young people has kept him youthful, too. The same may
be said for his excellent accompanist and associate
Bernard E. Kreger, who didn’t rate a biographical sketch
in the printed program, but who not only kept the Walt
Disney Concert Hall Steinway busy, but during items not
requiring his digital talents, stepped into the second tenor
section and sang along with the guys. Dr. Marvin became a
chorister himself when his protégés took the podium.
In addition to the full choir, a
chamber choir of eleven singers, dubbed “Harvard Lite” and
conducted by Robert Griffin, whose musical talents
seem to be doomed as he heads into a career in social
science, provided contrasting styles in two pop songs,
“If You Could Only See Her” and the Beach Boys’
“Wouldn’t It Be Nice?” The former provided Mr. Griffin
with a solo opportunity that he clearly relished, and the
latter was soloed by a young tenor, Curt Nehrkorn, whose nearly boy-alto range and
excellent technique revealed a sweet tone and personality.
The concert opened with the Sanctus
from the Solemn Divine Liturgy by the Armenian composer
Gomidas, and then all were treated to a gorgeously sung
Sicut cervus by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
that signaled an exceptional evening to come. Dr. Marvin’s
own composition, Cantantes licent usque eamus (Let us
go forth singing), an ode in Renaissance style written in
honor of the Glee Club’s 150th year, revealed a
composer who knows his instrument, but whose work was rather
more academic than attractive. Also honoring the 150th
birthday was a commissioned work by Dominick Argento
entitled “Apollo in Cambridge: A Harvard Triptych: I. The
Shepherd of King Admetus; II. The Voiceless and III. Fata
Morgana” with wonderful lyrics by James Russell Lowell,
Oliver Wendell Holmes and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
respectively, Harvardians all. The musical language of the
Triptych tended to wander about, but was given a sensitive
reading that illuminated its late Romantic cum
dissonance lite, and related revelatory moments.
Of the eighteen remaining items in the
nearly two and one-half hour concert, highlights included
Benjamin Britten’s rarely heard The Ballad of Little
Musgrave and Lady Barnard, Josquin des Prez’s
Kyrie and Agnus Dei from his Missa Mater
Patris, a wide variety of global folksongs, amongst
which the Bosnian “Ne sedi, Djemo” (arranged by
Steven Sametz) gleamed with excellent vowel color, a
quality sorely missed given the current trend in local
academia, at least, to bending vowel color in pursuit of
blend that depletes and truncates the palette of sonic
possibility. Dr. Marvin remembered his roots and two
California tour venues with predecessor Archibald T.
Davison’s solid arrangement of Sacramento, based
on the familiar “Camptown Races” melody made familiar by
Stephen Foster, who himself was remembered with
“Gentle Annie,” one of the few items from America’s
Schubert not containing racist or misogynist text banished
by good taste and frowned upon by our PC-driven society.
The concluding three Harvard “football
songs” were fun to hear, and clearly enjoyed by all. Would
that the USC student body, for instance, sang its school
hymn and fight song with such vigor and commitment. And
these fellows actually knew all the words! Oh yeah, this is
laid-back El-ay. Ex-Glee Club members and other Harvard
University alumni in the audience were invited on stage to
sing these songs, which they did in their dozens.
Given the superb musicianship and vocal
achievements of these young male singers, it is regrettable
that one of only three items listed on the printed program
not performed on this auspicious occasion, Franz Biebl’s
seraphic Ave Maria, was not sung. It would have made
the evening perfect.
Two non-musical notes. During
intermission, a coffee-seeking audience was treated to the
din of a wedding reception held concurrently in the Disney
Concert Hall’s ground floor side auditorium in which
pre-concert lectures are held. Although the decibel output
was actually minimal, it was jarring nonetheless. “It’s all
in the timing” would seem to apply also to the traffic jam
that resulted from simultaneous audience decampments from
Disney Hall, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Ahmanson
Theatre. Out on the freeways, the last quartile of the
56,000 Dodger and Angel baseball fans were inching their way
home, slowly. |
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