Pacific Mozart Ensemble

Spirituals. The Pacific Mozart Ensemble. Hmmm.

That was one of my first thoughts when Lynne Morrow told us about the plan for our December 2006 concert set. What happened? One of the most moving and beautiful concerts we've done yet.

Fast forward to July 2007.

PME performs the same Spirituals concert at the Green Music Festival in Sonoma, California at Sonoma State University. My thoughts and feelings now? Wow!!

We took an entire concert and made it mobile. We've only done that a couple of other times, taking Jazz & Pop to Brentwood, but it was a heck of a lot of work to do so. This group doesn't usually have the opportunity to perform an entire concert set outside of our regular season, so we had a perfect chance to perform this one once again without the weeks of learning beforehand. This concert came together in just 2 rehearsals, and I think it was even better than the first set.

The ensemble sounded so beautiful and strong, Clarissa Darden Morrow gave a poignant performance in her narration along with the slide show Valerie Brown assembled and projected above us during the entire performance.

Beautiful, moving, sorrowful, loving, uplifting, fun. All of that.

PME has earned a reputation for interesting concerts, projects and collaborations, and I have to say that the Spirituals concert is one of my very favorite sets in the 10 years I have been singing in this group. There is something so visceral about this music, and in combination with Lynne's vision of presenting the story with a narrator and slide show, it is a powerful tribute to the history of the music.

The festival itself attracted music lovers from all around the area, and for PME it was a great opportunity to kind of strut our stuff for an unknown audience. I believe we achieved our goal, judging by the reception we received during and after the concert. I can say that personally, it was a thrill to stand before them and give them the stories. I could feel the audience listening, watching and feeling the experience, which of course, comes right back into the music.

Here are a couple of links to photos taken before and during.
Claudia's pics
Dick Grant's pics

There's talk of taking it to other places. There is an important message in this concert that rings true for current events as well as reminding us of the past. I'm game! Let's do it again!

This summer, after the incredibly busy 2006-7 PME season, most of us might have taken a break from rehearsals and singing, but a few of us had already committed to going once again to the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson, Wyoming. Last year, Lorna and Peggy (both with the summer off) were the only two members of the Pacific Mozart Ensemble joining folks from many other Bay Area Choruses, including the SF Opera Chorus, SF Symphony Chorus and SF Choral Society, in singing in Mahler's Symphony No. 3 to inaugurate the Grand Teton Festival Chorale (now known as the San Francisco Festival Chorale). That piece required only women and boys (the SF Boys Chorus) so it was a small-ish group. But this year, the 90 person mixed-voice chorus needed for Carl Orff's well known (and somewhat bawdy) masterpiece Carmina Burana included five Peemers (and one PME alum); Alexis, Antonia, Greg and Seth joined Lorna and Peggy. Says Peggy, "When I auditioned for last summer's concert, Ian Robertson, the director of the SF Boys Chorus, SF Opera Chorus, and now the SF Festival Chorus, did not seem to have much of a picture of the quality of PME's singers, and I hope that we are helping to change that. I'm pleased that all of us who auditioned got in this year."

Last year, Donald Runnicles, music director of the San Francisco Opera, took over as director of the Grand Tetons Music Festival, now in its 46th season, and vowed to really put it on the map. The festival has always attracted incredible musicians who want to keep working during the summer and have a bit of a vacation too! Many of these folks come back year after year to enjoy the Tetons, Yellowstone National Park and Jackson Hole, AND, of course, to play their hearts out. In his vision for the future, Maestro Runnicles plans to perform one symphonic work each summer that uses a chorus, and is developing the Festival Chorale with Ian for that purpose.

...O Fortuna...

No, it's wasn't one of the many commercials you've seen or heard, or a Harmony Sweepstakes entry, but the real thing in its entire bombastic glory! Goosebumps were growing by the thousands as we belted these words, standing behind the Chinese gong and following Maestro Runnicles' downbeats.

We found that the biggest challenge in singing Carmina Burana was not musical, but linguistic. The pronunciation is not Latin, although the words look like they are. We had to learn new rules and follow them… that and dynamics (sound familiar?). The women and boys had it easy compared to the men, who have a couple of extra movements and sing a tongue twisting drinking song, In Taberna Quando Sumus, that is about as easy as riding a bucking bronco. It's quite possible that Greg might still be recovering from that experience! "My pleasure and challenge this year was to sing soprano," said Peggy. "Last year I sang second alto, and this year, with no re-audition, I was assigned to sing second soprano" Who knew what Fortune's Wheel would land on? "It was fun, but tiring, because of my general lack of exercise in that tessitura. It did give me my "high note" fix for the year…and believe me…you can SING the high notes in this piece…LOUD, and know that the orchestra is still louder by far. Rehearsing, however, does not prepare one for the experience of singing this with an orchestra. It was exciting and dramatic, with huge contrasts in texture, orchestration, and mood… a very thrilling and satisfying evening of singing!"

Carmina is the perfect piece for the novice audience. Every performance saw the crowd pop up out of their seats, as if they'd been sitting on Jack-in-the-Box springs, and applaud insanely. After clapping through three bows at the end of each performance, they must have gone home with sore hands! We gave a free performance on Sunday, which was attended by those who generally would not be in a symphony audience and they loved it too. We had amazing soloists for this piece: Linda Mabbs produced the impossibly ethereal and floating soprano notes that are required for the Dulcissime and Setit Puella sections, but still remained solid and earthy for Amor Volat Undique and In Trutina. Lorna was particularly fond of the tenor soloist John Tessier, who sang the part of the Roasted Swan in the Olim Lacus Colueram with such ease and comfort, you'd have thought that those high D's were just the BEGINNING of his range. And Earle Patriarco (Alexis' personal favorite) was a wonderfully theatrical baritone who thrilled and impressed us with the depth and richness of his lower range, the brightness and security of his upper range, and the facility with which he went from one to the other at the drop of a hat. Plus, he was an all around cool guy who invited us to gather at his rented condo after the last performance!

Our daily rehearsal and performance schedule left lots of time to explore the area. Excursion vans were provided, and, with Greg at the wheel, our days were rounded out by swimming in the clear, cold lakes while looking up at the Teton peaks, hiking, and floating and rafting down the Snake River. Wildlife sightings were abundant- we saw a real live moose at Moose Junction, bald eagles, ospreys, antelope, a hungry coyote and a VERY hungry fox who pursued a VERY frightened deer right into the river. Nights were parties at our hotel and in taberna at the local watering holes like the Mangy Moose and The Cadillac Grille. Fine food (lissen' up singer-eaters!) was consumed at such establishments as the Alpenhof Bistro, Nora's Fish Creek Inn and Bubba's Bar-B-Que. We didn't make it to the Cowboy Bar for food or drink, but there's always next year!! (Alexis' souvenir cowboy hat is already asking about when it might be able return to its original stomping grounds…).

It was too much fun, and we are all hoping to go back next summer. We'll let you know when auditions happen. Just come; you won't regret it.

-Peggy Rock, Lorna Baird and Alexis Lane Jensen

Want more pics? You can view a slideshow of Alexis' photos here:
Grand Tetons & Yellowstone

Technorati : Carl Orff, Carmina Burana, Donald Runnicles, Grand Teton Music Festival, Grand Tetons

So what did Kymry & Becca do on their summer vacation? In July Kymry had the good fortune to accompany two choirs on back-to-back tours in Europe, and Becca came along for the journey. The Acalanes High School Chamber Singers performed in Lucerne and Paris, while WomenSing participated in a choral competition near Barcelona.

LUCERNE
Upon arrival in Switzerland we were treated to a welcome dinner, which included such traditional Swiss entertainments as polkas & waltzes on accordion, yodeling, and a big burly Alpine horn player named Urs. The Alpine horn is about 20 feet long, sort of a Swiss didgeridoo. Urs invited a parade of choristers onstage to play it, and Becca gave it her best toot. Apparently trombone embouchure is very useful in getting good long tones on the Alpine horn. Following this demonstration there was an archery contest, where would-be William Tells from the audience shot an apple-shaped plywood target with a crossbow. (A real apple atop the head of a lad would have been more true to the legend, but much more of a mess - one supposes there were no apples or young boys to spare that evening.)

While the kids were rehearsing for the final concert, we spent the afternoon touring around Lake Lucerne on the local ferry system. Here the true beauty of central Switzerland came to light. We saw small lakeside villages, chalets, waterfalls, and always looming above, the magnificent Alps. Imagine touring Tahoe without the south shore casinos and you get the idea.

A gregarious fellow from Kansas City named Eph Ely directed the final concert of the youth choral festival in Lucerne. His musical selections were a bit questionable, especially "Gospel America," a medley of My Country 'Tis of Thee, America the Beautiful, and the Battle Hymn of the Republic, all in a 12/8 gospel shuffle feel. But the kids certainly had fun singing, and you couldn't beat the beautiful KKL concert hall and the very fine local orchestra accompanying the massed choir. We were swept away by a particularly cheesy number called "The Awakening", by Joseph Martin - as interpreted by 300 voices, full brass, thundering timpani and cymbal crashes, it was wonderfully bombastic, like some latter-day Olympic fanfare. Kymry only wished he'd had a chance to play the Steinway piano onstage. It was strange to sit in the audience for this concert to be sure, but Becca had an even more surreal experience this entire trip as a singer traveling for three weeks with two choirs and not singing a note on stage.

PARIS
So with Lucerne wrapped up, we piled in the tour bus and drove to Paris. Our tour guide Patrick was a delight. He was witty, bright, and would spontaneously burst into song on the bus, serenading us on the P.A. with French songs and '80s new wave classics. But he was also constantly reading a volume of Rudolf Steiner philosophy - perhaps just to give him the appearance of not being a total hedonistic party animal. (It didn't seem to fool our teenage sopranos, who swooned over him like he was made of chloroform.) His age and origins remained obscure, but we learned a couple of things. Supposedly his home is Las Vegas, but as he makes his living as a tour guide for various performing arts groups, he's constantly on the road, keeps apartments in Atlanta and Brussels, and a Swiss bank account. Sounds like a pretty good life.

In Paris we performed at three incredible cathedrals. The first was a mass at Basilique Sainte Clotilde, near Blvd. Saint-Germain. It's most famous for having the organ that Cesar Franck inaugurated and performed on for over thirty years. Following his tenure, Gabriel Pierne and a number of other noted French organists have succeeded the post. The current organist played a very complex and demonically chromatic piece as the introit and recession for the mass. When Kymry asked the organist which piece he'd played, he shrugged and said, "I was improvising." We had assumed improvising on the pipe organ was a lost art, but certainly not in the hands of that guy. So when Kymry got the chance to play this beast, he couldn't pass it up, but was hardly qualified for the gig. "I'm a pianist, not an organist. I don't know how to work those buttons and stops, and I certainly can't play that huge pedalboard underneath with my feet. I got a bit of help from my demonic organ friend, but it was a bit like getting behind the wheel of a Ferrari and just driving to the corner grocery store. I never got past second gear, but it sure was fun."

Our next performance was at Notre Dame, surely a highlight of the trip. The choir rose to the occasion and even the crowd of tourists parading through the sanctuary quieted down for the hour and gave the kids a good round of applause. After singing corny massed-choir music in Lucerne with hundreds of teenagers, in Paris the Acalanes Chamber Singers finally had the opportunity to perform more subtle music on their own as a smaller 24-voice group. Their repertoire included Poulenc, Vittoria, Gabrieli, Duruflé, and a new arrangement of "Amazing Grace" by their conductor Bruce Lengacher. That evening we took a sunset boat cruise on the Seine, enjoying the gorgeous twilight and a couple of rainbows. We rounded off the night with an aerobic journey up the Eiffel Tower, climbing up nearly 700 steps to the second level.

The next day the choir took a trip to Versailles. We didn't have enough time to get inside the palace but we did explore the expansive gardens and grounds surrounding the buildings. Unfortunately the two of us spent a little more time wandering around than we should have, and we walked back to our meeting point only to find the tour bus pulling away. Luckily Becca managed to flag it down!! We went on to visit and perform at Chartres, the final concert of the tour for Acalanes. On the bus ride home, Patrick had people come up and sing karaoke into the bus mic. Becca sang "Case of You", and Lindsay, an Acalanes alum and Joni Mitchell fan, sang the second verse. The women's vocal octet at Acalanes has learned some of Solstice's repertoire, and Becca was excited to sing a couple songs with them on the ride back to the hotel.

Later that night we took some of the kids out to the Moulin Rouge cabaret. It was an incredibly cheesy floor show - très fromageur, oui! - with prerecorded music (canned can-cans?) and lip-syncing, but there was no denying the terrific feather-boa costumes (or lack thereof) nor the endless flow of champagne at our table. The next morning we groggily said our goodbyes to Bruce and the Acalanes kids and spent a few nights on our own in Paris. We rented an apartment in Montmartre, just upstairs from Picasso's first flat in Paris - fairly modest but with a million-dollar view - and enjoyed exploring the steep cobblestone streets and stairways of Erik Satie's old neighborhood.

SPAIN
After a lengthy journey through the public transit system of Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport, we hopped on a short flight to Barcelona, where we were greeted by WomenSing and whisked away to Girona. After the gloomy weather in Switzerland and France, the summer splendor of Spain's Mediterranean coast was a welcome change. We visited the Salvador Dalí museum in Figueres, a beguiling combination of art museum, amusement park, and self-aggrandizing memorial. We also visited some ancient Roman ruins at Empuries, but the clear blue Mediterranean was calling us so a few of us ditched the tour party in favor of more hedonistic pursuits.

WomenSing's first performance was at the Romanesque monastery of St. Pere de Rodes, by far the most striking concert setting on our entire trip. The monastery was built on a high bluff overlooking the Mediterranean, and the chapel had a wonderfully austere, simple stone interior with a glorious acoustic. Best of all for Kymry, they'd rented an amazing Petrof grand piano for the occasion. It had amazing clarity of tone, and three extra keys at the bottom down to low F. How they got that huge piano up that windy mountain road all the way to the monastery we'll never know, but Kymry couldn't tear himself away from the piano after the concert was over. It was a nice surprise to have an instrument of such high quality in so remote a location.

The real surprise, though, was in store for us once we arrived in Barcelona. We opened our hotel room door to find a veritable cavern of domestic comforts laid out before us. There was a jacuzzi, two TVs, a frightfully out-of-tune upright piano, a king bed, and - best of all - a balcony overlooking the Ramblas, Barcelona's main strolling boulevard. Let's just say it was rather larger than our cottage back home in Berkeley. There was nothing for it but to fill up the vast abyss by inviting all of WomenSing over the next day for a little cocktail party and piano sing-along. There were requests for Becca to sing, and one of the partygoers even asked her to record an album called "Hooked on Becca."

The choral competition was in the small mountain village of Cantonigròs, a couple hours north of Barcelona. The festival took place on a large field, with performances held in a tent. WomenSing competed in two categories, women's choirs and folk music. There were many amazing groups from all over the world, though the choirs from central/northern Europe seemed to be in a class all their own. A very polished choir from Norway took first prize for women's groups. For the folk category, most choirs dressed up in traditional peasant outfits, which, combined with reedy instruments and the hayseed setting made the whole event feel a bit like a Renaissance Faire. WomenSing sang an arrangement of "Amazing Grace" and a gospel song called "Thou My Everlasting Portion," and their folk outfit was matching red choir robes, as if they were some sort of gospel choir. Can I get an "Oh-No-You-Did'n!". It was hard to say what the judges thought of that. WomenSing didn't place in either of the competitions, but they did sing beautifully. It was Kymry's swan song with this ensemble and he was happy to see them perform at such a high level and end his four-year tenure with the chorus on such a high note.

So WomenSing packed their bags and headed back to Barcelona for the long flight home, while we remained in town a few extra days to enjoy the Barcelona scene. We arrived at our apartment to find much of the city at a standstill due to a power outage. Traffic was a free-for-all at most intersections and many stores just shut their tills and opened their doors to the warm summer air. It didn't seem to faze the locals, who kept about their business as usual. It was wonderful to see families strolling along the Ramblas every night, and enjoying relaxed evening meals. We visited the many beautiful structures of Gaudí scattered throughout the city, including Park Güell and the enormous Sagrada Familia cathedral, which like the Gothic cathedrals of old is still under construction more than a century after the first stone was laid. There were some memorable buskers as well: the guy at Park Güell who played Vivaldi on the button accordion (beautifully!), and the oboe player on Passeig de Gràcia who did a very poor rendition of "My Way." We spent our last day at the beach in Barcelona, happily floating in the blue Mediterranean. A relaxing end to an epic trip!

-Kymry E and Becca B

See the full slide show (173 pics!) here: Europe July 2007

Technorati : Acalanes High School, WomenSing

A few weeks ago, Kurt and I were headed for New York and the 2007 Air Guitar US National competition. We had booked our flights (his being paid for by the US Air Guitar organization…yes, this org. does exist) in early July after the friendly takeover of the San Jose Regional Air Guitar Championship by Shred Nugent a.k.a. Kurt Brown.

At the time of the booking, a red eye had seemed like a great idea. Arriving at the Oakland airport an hour and a half before our midnight flight, we were near panic. ATA computer systems were down, the line stretched nearly to the door and the check-in counter was hand-writing boarding passes at a painfully slow pace. After about 30 minutes, the line had not moved an inch. We had originally been scheduled to arrive in New York five hours prior to the competitors 'call' and now we feared the worst. After checking with every other airline for available/still scheduled flights to NY, to no avail, all we could do was wait. 45 minutes into it the systems were back up and the line began to move. Phew. The flight left only an hour delayed.

We arrived at the official US National Air Guitar 2007 hotel (read: HoJo) in SoHo and were immediately nearly run over by Erin "McNallica" McNally - in full make up --rushing to get to the Rolling Stone press conference that had been moved to an earlier time slot, unbeknownst to most participants. Ok, so Kurt missed that one, but we had reached our destination. "Skeety Jones & the Skeety Jones Band" (one man) from Chicago and "The Shred" from DC were checking in at the same time, as were the parents of "Airisol" the current champ from the Twin Cities. The atmosphere was already full of chummy competitiveness. Clearly, everyone had studied their competition online.

Despite the increasing nervousness (that I felt…not so much Kurt), we managed to get lunch at the famous Katz' diner, only blocks away from our hotel. We were met by Kurt's parents, his 15-year old cousin, and some friends from the East Coast who had all come to cheer him on.

After lunch, we dropped Kurt off at the Fillmore (East) at New York's Union Square area. They were headed for another press conference. It went something like this:

MSNBC: How did you spend your time training for the competition?
Ricky Stinkfingers (SF Champ): By drinking as much as possible, I've been trying to build up my tolerance.

Outside the Fillmore, a line was already forming to the sold out show. It took me only minutes to rid myself of the two extra tickets we had ended up with.

The warm up act (with actual instruments and Yay! to earplugs) was a somewhat questionable Jersey based band called 'Satanicide". My favorite thing about them was their back up 'dancer', a last minute addition to the evening's performance. I've never seen a man dancing in a bikini with such conviction. It took a few minutes for the stage hands to take down the set, and to clear the stage for the main performers of the night…and finally the 'air' was on.

The emcee (the only professional US Air Guitarist) Björn Türogue, introduced the judges (Jason Jones of The Daily Show, Rachel Dratch of Saturday Night Live, best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell and ACLU lawyer Ben Wizner) and gave the packed hall a run down of the rules & criteria:

"The contestants participate in two rounds: in the first, each competitor performs with a 60 second edit of a song of their own choosing, in the second, the top five competitors from round one compete by performing with a surprise song. In each round the contestants are judged on technical merit, stage presence and the somewhat obscure quality of "airness":

Airness = the extent to which the performance transcends the imitation of the real art form and becomes an art form in and of itself.

Also, as you may have noticed, one of the key elements to air guitar greatness is the stage name. It definitely is more than just a name, it becomes their alter-ego.

There are other, un-official, guidelines to great air guitar-ing, as well. One of the most revered to seems to be the "three-beer-rule". Apparently, any deviation from it and you may find yourself in trouble on stage.

The main prize, and Kurt's motivation for participation: a free trip to Oulu, Finland (my hometown) to represent the U.S. at the Air Guitar World Championships. Since 1996, it has been a yearly event in Oulu. It began as a peace movement with the idea "if you are playing air guitar, you cannot hold a gun in your hands at the same time." Today, representatives from 17 countries come to Oulu in the hopes of bringing home the trophy - an actual electric guitar called the "Flying Finn", hand-made by a Finnish guitar maker Matti Nevalainen.

The first round was filled with great performances by all; stage dives, mid-performance costume changes, back flips, hand stands and flying liquids of all kinds. My main goal was not to get the camera drenched, being at the front of the stage I had given up on the rest.

In an air guitar competition, the performance order is everything. Going first is a kiss of death, or so I'm told. Kurt got #4 in the hat draw, which wasn't terrible, but could've been better. He had edited Ozzy Ozbourne's latest hit "I Don't Wanna Stop" to the required 60 seconds, gave it his all, but that night and for that panel of judges, it just wasn't enough of the right kind of 'airness'. His response to the 'judging' was in a form of spidey boxers…a kinder version of the reactions that the judges drew from many of the competitors. There seems to prevail a certain kind of love-hate relationship that air guitar competitors & judges, and for that matter, audience & judges have…and cherish. It really is not for the faint of heart.

After a fierce first round, five competitors proceeded to the second round, to improvise to Darkness' "Get Your Hands off My Woman." The five finalists were:

Andrew " William Ocean " Litz (NY)
Fatima "Rockness Monster" Hoang (LA)
Craig "Hot Lixx Hulahan" Billmeier (Defending US Champ, from Alameda )
Randy "Big Rig" Layman (Houston)
Erin "McNallica" McNally (Boston )

Some crushed beer cans and many stage "surfings" later, William Ocean emerged as the victor of this year's US Nationals. His fans, the 'Wave Riders', filled the room with noise…and more flying liquids. By this time I was wishing I'd brought a rain coat…uhm…and some boots.

As is the tradition, anyone in the audience hoping to get a taste of 'airness' was invited to join the competitors on stage for the final number of the official part of the evening to play along to 'Freebird'. To see it makes one wonder about the load carrying capacity of these stages, and hope for the best.

But the night was not even close to being over. The entire entourage (or at least 200 of the main enthusiasts) packed a nearby Beauty Bar for an after party that lasted till the wee hours of the morning. Of course, many more air performances were seen throughout the night.

-Mari Marjamaa

Mari's Pics from the event: Shred Nugent Slide Show
Here's a sample of Kurt's performance:

Other Links:
MSNBC Zeitgeist article: Greatness Stinks at the Air Guitar Championships
Rolling Stone article: Air Guitarists Wail...
US Air Guitar (Movie)
World Championships, Oulu Finland
History of Air Guitar

Technorati : Air Guitar, Fillmore East, MSNBC, Rolling Stone

Well, I am singing a bit of Hildegard-- involved in a production of "Ordo Virtutum" with S.F. Renaissance Voices that goes up the first three weekends of August, at venues around the Bay Area. What I can say right now is this: for being an Abbess, and therefore, a righteous sister, Hildegard was a mother of a composer! Memorization is really difficult because, unlike the "Play of Daniel", where there was thematically different music for each set of characters, rhyming text and enough movement through a vaguely familiar story line to get cues, "Ordo Virtutum" is a unique work based on visions of Hildegard. These visions were first sketched in her monumental work "Scivias", then developed into an "opera-like" piece, which, if it was ever performed, would have been heard at the dedication of the convent she founded at Rupertsburg.

The piece is textually highly rhetorical, musically quite modal, and very little physical movement is called for (although we are trying to create some for this presentation). Each of the virtues explains, to a soul about to be tempted, who and what they are and how they can help the soul remain free within sanctity. The Devil tempts and the Soul succumbs to the Devil's temptations, but turns back with repentance and allows the virtues to help her. The Virtues bind the Devil, to break his hold on the Soul, then guide the Soul back to the light.

The music is replete with little motives (some of these are described in the literature about Hildegard's music as being "typically Hildegardian motives". There is one motive in particular that is "Hildegard's signature": a four note motive of tonic rising to the perfect fifth, rising to the octave, declining to the minor seventh). These motives, either helpfully or unhelpfully, recur all over the place and I have painstakingly marked them all in my score, whenever I run across them, with a red pencil. (Someone should do a study on all the motives alone, to see if there is some sort of system there. A diverting search on the net revealed no such study...) Where these motives are applied, they are embellished and altered frequently. That is to say, there are no sequences to be seen in the tropes. It is almost like doing an hour-or-so-long song that resembles through-composed recitative, but without any helpfully jangling harpsichord cues!

Okay, all that having been said, I am confessing that it is quite a difficult task to memorize the parts of this music that need to be memorized [as some other PME women can attest to, as we sang a few Hildegard chants back in '94 and '95 (if I am recalling correctly)]. But, ladies, that was only 4 to 5 minutes of chanting at most, maybe less… "Ordo Virtutum" is just shy of an hour and a half in length, and though we don't need to have the entire piece memorized, each of the ten ladies involved needs to have a chunk memorized.

As you might be able to see in the adjacent photo, my score is scribbled over with English text, yellow highlights, red pencil markings over the recurring motivic bits, and other markings that show the necessary specifics of German Latin pronunciation. Voted "most likely to succeed with office products" in high school, I have been as inventive as possible, creating a card deck with the text of each number, marked with the pauses and signifiers over each word where there is a melisma. Wherever Hildegard's signature motive occurs in my portions of the music, I have marked a tilde (for Hilde…) over the portion of the text where it occurs. I have my tuning fork by my side, and am employing some 21st century technology in the form of an iPod Nano with a voice memo recorder attached.

I wake up in the middle of the night with random bits and pieces running through my head, but not full chants and not in any kind of recognizable order, from one to the next.

Add to my dilemma that this is summer, the twins need diversions (or, at least, to be taxied to and from their diversions…), my part-time job is still in full-swing, the husband is in and out of town, I have other projects, not to mention social obligations, pulling at me, and, whew (!), I have a lot weighing on my mind.

Nevertheless, I am having fun! It is a wonderful challenge to work on a piece like this, which is so seldom performed. It is great to be working with a new set of singers. The rehearsal process has been oddly soothing and low-key (perhaps a bit too low-key…). The amazing thing is that, in the church where we have been practicing, we have been able to keep the pitch center fairly constant as we move through the sung passages. Slaving over a hot score in the good ole summertime is, perhaps, not so much fun... But, I have been enjoying the challenge.

And this group speaks "singer-eater"! The Hildegyrlz, as we have been dubbed, went on an expedition together last weekend, first for lunch at Udupi Palace on University, then down the street to procure costumes, with the help of our choreographer (yes, there are some dance numbers, but this ain't Ziegfelds' Folly!), culminating in a casual rehearsal, fueled by glasses of fine wine. To the right of yours truly (in brilliant blue) you see Purnima Jha, our choreographer; she is known internationally for Jaipur style Kathak dancing.

If you are around in August, I hope you'll check out our show!
-Elisabeth Eliassen
July 2008

One Sunday morning when I was seven, I told my mother I wanted to sing with the church choir, which was made up of men and boys in the English choral tradition. I've been singing ever since, although not in a ruffed collar. I wore green tights once, and an elaborate kimono for one production…

I've met many wonderful people and wonderful musicians. I met my wife Meredith in the Pomona College Glee Clubs. We sang together in several groups including the S.F. Symphony Chorus. Unfortunately there simply isn't enough time to do everything you want to do; Meredith eventually dropped out of choral singing.

Friends in various choruses encouraged her to start singing again but that didn't get anywhere until this summer, when the tipping point was Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem", the summer concert of the San Francisco Choral Society.

We love this piece! The first year we moved to San Francisco, we performed it with the Winifred Baker Chorale. We were blown away - the piece is incredible. Meredith couldn't resist the opportunity to sing it again.

Last month I learned Janet Corah sang in that performance too. It isn't surprising I hadn't realized that, because the Winifred Baker Chorale was somewhat schizophrenic. Half the chorus rehearsed in San Francisco and half rehearsed in Marin, coming together for performance week. Janet was in the Marin cohort.

Mer was anxious about the audition because she felt pretty rusty, so she worked with Kristin Womack to help knock the rust off the pipes. It worked - she passed the audition and we started rehearsing.

Benjamin Britten composed the War Requiem in 1962 for the re-consecration of Coventry Cathedral, which was bombed and destroyed during WWII. The text is a mash-up of the Latin mass for the dead, and poems of Wilfred Owen, the leading poet of WWI. Owen wrote poems about trench warfare and the slaughter of his generation. After treatment for shell shock, Owen chose to return to the front, where he died a week before the war ended.

Britten divides his forces in three.

• The Latin mass is set for orchestra, chorus, and soprano soloist.
• A children's chorus innocently sings some of the prayers.
• Owen's poetry is set for chamber orchestra with tenor and baritone soloists.

The juxtapositions are heart wrenching. One example is in the offertory (the point in the service when the congregation offers gifts to the church). The children pray that the dead will be delivered from the inferno and the lion's mouth. The chorus prays that the dead will be brought into the light, as was promised to Abraham and his seed. Here is interpolated a poem that tells the story of Abraham and Isaac, the ultimate offering, but this version goes terribly wrong.

Britten rarely lets us sit back and listen to the pretty music (with the exception of the Recordare). His music does not sound especially dissonant, but he uses the harmonic ambiguity of whole tone scales, and a C-F# tritone that resolves in different ways, to keep us on edge.

The piece was first performed in 1962 with Britten as one of the conductors. He chose soloists from three countries ravaged by the war - Peter Pears (England), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Germany) and Galina Vishnevskaya (Russia). (The USSR prevented Vishnevskaya from traveling to the first performance but she sang on the first recording the next year.)

Andy Stewart notes "I heard the first performance of this, broadcast on BBC radio from the ruins of Coventry Cathedral in May, 1962. It is an absolutely stunning work, if anything more relevant to the present-day US than it was to early 1960s Britain."

You need serious conducting chops to bring this off successfully and Bob Geary was up to the job. It helped that he did this piece before, with the SFCS in 1999. There was no anxiety about balancing with the orchestra - the chorus had more than 170 singers on stage. I take my hat off to SFCS - I really enjoyed singing with SFCS and working with Bob. You can read the review in SF Classical Voice here: Silencing the Guns of War. I talked up PME and maybe that will bear fruit. (The last time I sang with SFCS, Paul Keaton joined PME.)

Sometimes we don't get respect from those who know us best. Bob told us about the notes his wife gave him after the last dress rehearsal. He had become more and more animated in conducting the sections where the intensity peaks. His wife told him he was starting to resemble Cro-Magnon man and, although a great conductor might get away with it, he was a good conductor and it wouldn't work.

Bob was put to the test near the start of the first movement in the Friday performance. That all-important C-F# tritone is played on the tubular bells at several key moments and the chorus depends on it to get the pitch. The percussionist seemed to be having a little trouble counting to 4. One time Bob gave a big cue on the 4th beat of the measure and nothing happened. No problem - Bob smoothly added a 5th beat to the measure and gave the cue again!

One thing I particularly love about singing with PME is the wide variety of music we perform. As Jim Hale observed, if you aren't in PME you don't understand how many different things we do. That said, there is a special thrill in performing a big symphonic work. We experienced some of that this year when we did Beethoven's 9th with NVS; I was delighted to get another fix this summer. It was wonderful to perform with Meredith again, and it was wonderful to sing the Britten again.

-Jeff Watts

Update Aug 8th 2PM:
We are having trouble with the comment section on the blog. If you would like to comment send me (eric) and email and I'll post it like so:

Comment from Nette:

Thanks for this Jeff. The one time I've done the War Requiem was with the SF Symphony, Kurt Masur conducting. The most incredible moment came in the first rehearsal with chorus and orchestra. We weren't bringing the intensity of emotion that Maestro Masur wanted for the piece, so after several pointed remarks, he put his baton down and spoke quietly of war. He was drafted into the German army as a young teen (I seem to recall he was only 15), toward the very end of WWII. Only 24 members of his company, all of whom were under 20, lived through the end of the war. THAT is what war meant to him, that is what the War Requiem should portray, and Davies Symphony Hall was utterly silent as he finished. He picked his baton up, gave the downbeat, and we made real music. What a humbling experience...

Technorati : Benjamin Britten, Bob Geary, Pomona College Glee Club, San Francisco Choral Society, War Requiem