Pacific Mozart Ensemble

by Kim Keeton

What does January mean to you? Making New Year's resolutions. Getting back to that exercise routine to burn off all those holiday calories. Trying to remember where you were at work before the break. Wondering how early you need to leave to beat the weekend traffic to Tahoe. Longing for just a few more hours of daylight in the evenings. How about this one: going to a fabulous bash where you can hear great music from a wide range of genres, bid on amazing experiences and items in a silent auction, feast on sumptuous hors d'oeuvres and wines, and help out one of your favorite musical organizations. Sounds like a fun January to me!

PME is getting ready for our annual fundraiser, which will be held on Saturday, January 27. This year's theme is "Cities and Seasons: a Musical Journey." What began years ago as an afternoon parlor concert in our director's living room has grown into a major event including a concert and silent auction, to be held at the Town and Gown Club in Berkeley.

Boy, do we have a journey for you! We'll take you on a musical tour of the world, with stops in the mid-west, Paris, Wales, Istanbul, and a long layover in one of our favorite spots, New York. Of all the events we do, I like this one the most, because we get the opportunity to sing all the genres we love. You'll hear musical theatre, covers of rock songs, classical pieces, spirituals, barbershop, and soul, just to name a few.

Of all the genres, my personal favorite is musical theatre - musical comedy, in particular. I work in a serious high-tech research job in Silicon Valley, so the opportunity to act silly and make people laugh really appeals to me. Whether it's a little smirk or a side-splitting, laugh-until-you-cry moment, it's incredibly rewarding to watch the audience reaction and know you've somehow injected a little levity.

Our soloists are out in force this year - some familiar, and some new to the PME family. I heard all of the auditions, and I can pretty much promise that they will knock your socks off, as will our ensembles, both small and large.

What's a whirlwind trip without souvenirs, you ask? Our silent auction isn't to be missed! Last year's event raised nearly a tenth of PME's overall budget, and we hope that this year will be just as successful - maybe even more so. This year's offerings include some of the hottest items of the past (Chez Panisse dinners, Rosenblum wines, spectacular dinners prepared in your home, private concerts, massages) and some one-of-a-kind surprises.

To keep your energy up on your harmonious travels, the PME culinary team is cooking up delights from places far and wide, along with lovely wines and bubbly. We haven't earned the nickname "singer-eaters" without reason! You're in for a real treat.

So put on your travelin' shoes and bring your checkbook for an amazing musical journey through time and place!

A New Years Message from our Director - Dr Lynne Morrow

Well, we’ve kicked off our 26th season with a multimedia presentation of African American spirituals. This concert was also a tribute to the great, contemporary spirituals arranger, Moses Hogan. He died too young and this was his anniversary year.

We started off the season with a workshop, led by Bill Bell, a local master jazz pianist and a spirituals expert. He really helped us become more comfortable with the idea of singing this American music. We also got a chance to perform 2 of Bill Bell’s arrangements and 2 by Jacquie Hairston, another Bay Area spirituals arranger.

My concept, having the experience of the sung spirituals augmented by period images and ‘scraps’ of slave narratives, was totally realized! Valerie had photos that she took in West Africa at the slave port in Ghana. Those photos were mixed in with other period images that I asked her and Dick to put together. The effect was very powerful. Emily put a team together to write the slave narratives on pieces of cloth. At the start of the concert, we processed in and hung the cloths on a line. I was pleased with how many people looked at those narratives during the intermission. It was truly a collaborative effort, putting all the technical pieces together. Thanks everyone!

Added to all of this was a narrator. We had two: Belva Davis, journalist, and my mom, Claressa Darden Morrow, teacher/storyteller. I was glad that people got a chance to hear CDMorrow. She does a lot of storytelling and poetry reading in the area, so she really delivered the Story of Freedom. Thanks, Ladies!

There’s another aspect of this concert that I’m really happy about. We have a few teachers in PME and they have asked us to come to their schools to perform this music. I think it’s so important that people perform this music, American music. We’ve also been asked to perform this set at the Green Music Festival this summer. We’ll be in the company of nationally known artists!

Coming right on the heels of this show is our annual fundraiser. The theme this year is “Cities and Seasons.” It’s amazing how many songs fall into those categories! You’ll have to come and hear which ones you know and which ones are new to you.

In March, we’re going to present “Wachet auf/Awake!” our set of American and European motets. The focal point is Strauss’ “Deutsche Mottete” (German motet). This piece is rarely performed because of its difficulty AND because the tenor parts are in tenor clef! That is so wrong! So, Angie and Dick are creating our own edition, with the tenor parts transposed. I’ll add my new translation. (I wrote my master’s thesis about this piece.) This will be an exciting challenge!

All spring, people will be meeting in small groups to put their jazz and pop tunes together for the final concert set of the season. This process is an exhilarating part of being in PME. Someone comes up with a tune they want to do, they put a group together, practice and then audition to be in the show. New material every year. Amazing. I never grow tired of it.

What excites you...
by Kim Keeton

...about singing, that is? I love making people laugh. One of my friends loves an opportunity to play his guitar. Several of my friends love telling stories - especially ones that tug at a listener's heartstrings. That's one of the things I love most about PME's annual fundraiser - it gives us the opportunity to perform the music that excites us the most.

I like all the pieces we'll perform at the fundraiser, but there's one that I'm especially excited about: "Rhapsody of New York." This piece, which is a four-voice rendition of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" with words about New York, is an utter showstopper. I first heard my fellow PMEers sing it during one of my first few years in PME, and I remember thinking that I wanted more than anything to be a part of it. When our director, Lynne, announced that the fundraiser theme would be "Cities and Seasons," I knew it was the perfect opportunity to learn it.

I didn't know much about "Rhapsody in Blue" until I picked up a children's book about it one night in the symphony gift shop. The story opens when George's brother Ira discovers a newspaper announcement for an upcoming concert called "An Experiment in Modern Music," at which George's new jazz concerto is to be featured. Only he hasn't written it yet! After George's disbelief subsides, he has to get down to business and compose the piece in a matter of weeks. Talk about writer's block! Homesick for New York while rehearsing a musical in Boston, he realizes that American music is much like its people, a great melting pot of sounds, rhythms, and harmonies. So he decides to capture this musical kaleidoscope, including snippets of jazz, Klezmer, blues, and other popular styles of 1920s New York.

The lyrics for this rendition carry on in that same fine tradition, and to me they completely evoke the feeling of being in New York. You hear the blare of the traffic, the roar of the subway, and the people bustling through the streets. You see the rich people strutting by with their noses in the air. You watch the taxicabs zig and zag as they drive to their destination. And you even hear the music coming from the Broadway theatres and the jazz clubs.

The piece is at once exhilarating and terrifying. It's amazingly challenging, both from a stamina perspective and a range perspective - three of the parts have ranges over 2 octaves! My partners in crime for this little adventure are my friends Kate, Angie and Lark. (Lark's husband, Roger, nicknamed our quartet "High Maintenance," because, frankly, we are.) We've been rehearsing for a few months now, through bad colds and sinus infections - if we can perform it under those circumstances, we think it'll be swell when we're all healthy. If we get all our tuning, transitions, and notes right, we feel utterly elated. If we get it wrong, well, we try again. Lynne came to coach us at our last rehearsal, where we tried singing it off-book for the first time. Oh my, there are so many words! It made such a world of difference to sing without the music, though - the transitions hung together better, because we could pay more attention to each other, and our tempos made so much more sense. I can't wait until the next rehearsal, so that we can practice all that we talked about!

I hope you'll be able to join us on the 27th, as we share with you the music that excites us - especially this "symphony, pounding, resounding, alive with the jive of ... New York."

Kim Keeton

Technorati : Gershwin, Pacific Mozart Ensemble, Rhapsody in Blue, Rhapsody of New York

by Emily Brockman

PME is having a party; a big, beautiful, happy, gala of a party. We have one every year about this time and we invite all of our favorite people to come celebrate with us.

That's how I see the annual fundraiser, as a big celebration of all that is best about PME. Because it's a grand musical event, a glorious and varied show where members get to perform their personal favorites, and it's a party, with wonderful wine and fabulous food.

When I first joined PME about 5 years ago, the fundraiser was an intimate affair that took place at the Grant's beautiful house on the hill. It was an elegant and gracious party managed to perfection by Gretchen Grant and Donna Warrington. There was wine and champagne and truly gorgeous food, exquisite savories, home made cheese straws, the tiniest lemon tarts I had ever seen, everything the best. In those years, I just offered to help where I could.

But soon thereafter, the fundraiser moved to a larger space so that we could have a stage to perform on, and Gretchen and Donna decided that life was too short and they needed some time for themselves (imagine) and gradually I have taken on the project of the food for the annual extravaganza that is the PME annual fundraiser.

I had always offered to help because I have been a professional cook for many years and, though I don't enjoy every aspect of catering, I do love contributing to a wonderful organization that has given me so much over the years.

But then I was on my own and I was worried about the responsibility, so I went to visit both Gretchen and Donna to receive their sage advice. Donna passed onto me (with obvious relief) her red folder stuffed with notes and recipes that she had gathered and tested over the years. This has proved invaluable, with marginalia indicating how best to bake and cut and serve for a crowd.

Gretchen wrote me a monograph full of the lessons she had learned over many years of managing an all-volunteer project, impressing upon me the differences between a volunteer effort and a professional one. With a project such as this one, it is an expression of our entire community, so part of my job is how to define tasks so that many people can be involved and to construct projects so that the people volunteering to do them will succeed and therefore be part of the overall success.

And lo and behold it has worked brilliantly. With much input from the rest of our formidable committee, I hammer out a menu of savories, sweets, fruits and cheeses. Then I sit down and plan the projects. I always try to plan things that can be made in advance and brought to be baked on site. And there are parts that I enjoy doing (making the filling for 200 tiny filo packets) and parts that I do not enjoy doing(rolling 200 tiny filo packets). I like to make the cookie dough, I hate baking the cookies. I don't much like making crostini but it's the best thing on which to eat pate so I put it on the list and contemplate whom best to ask to make them.

Sometimes things get sent home with people; last year Peggy and Josie baked the cookies and Polly made the pate. Sometimes people bring their own specialties, like Jeff and his Chocolate Delights or Annette's glorious toffee. And then there's "the work day". This is where I get people to come to my house and roll all those tiny filo packets so I don't have to, you know, many hands=light work and all that. And besides, it's tons of fun and really productive. I like to stay in the kitchen feeding off the happy energy in my house and getting ahead on the other projects that need doing. This year, while Jacquie, Corinne, and Lorna sat at my dining room table chatting and rolling, I was in the kitchen with Alexis making tortilla cups and prepping lemon curd ingredients. Love those work days.

Now I have a freezer full of tart shells, b'steeya, and tortilla cups ready to be filled. My fridge has a huge bowl of lemon curd (I ran out last year) and all the ingredients for cookies and samosas which are yet to be made. The party is well in hand and I have that sort of happy anxiety when you have done all you can and you can only wait for the curtain to go up and the show to begin.

Check out more pics of the baking party here: PME Fund Raiser 07 Food Prep

Technorati : Fund Raiser, Pacfici Mozart Ensemble