No purely choral events this month, but there’s a nice span of time and types of music to sample for those inclined. First, the Repertory Opera Company (more on them in a moment) is presenting “Serenades of Love,” a concert of duets and choruses appropriate for Valentine’s Day this Sunday, 10 February, at 4 p.m. in Pomona. There will be music of Mozart and Rogers and Hammerstein, Bizet, Rodgers and Hart, and more.
The next weekend, at 5 p.m. on Sunday, 17 February, a benefit concert titled “If Music Be the Food of Love” will feature a variety of small ensembles performing mostly early music in support of the homeless ministries of the Cucamonga United Methodist Church. The ensembles include the Gregorian Schola of Los Angeles, the Ad Hoc Consort, the Village Pipers of Claremont, and the Renaissance Club. You should expect Gregorian chant, Renaissance dance, sacred and secular music spanning centuries before Bach. The location is the Cucamonga United Methodist Church on Archibald Ave. in Rancho Cucamonga. There will be a free will offering.
The last known (to me) bit of choir outside of worship and between two colleges this month will be when the Chino UMC Sanctuary choir joins the 26 February Pomona Valley Musicians’ Club on Tuesday, 26 February at 7:30 p.m. in the Musicians’ Club program “Leprechauns and Lassies… or Airs from the Isles.” There will be tenor, piano, harp, tin whistle and choir. I think the kilts will be imaginary. The location will be the Chino United Methodist Church.
Of course, the bulk of choral music this month will be in the service of God, and some of it will fall next Wednesday, being Ash Wednesday. Unlike Christmas Eve. Palm Sunday and Easter, however, these services are not trumpeted, and I’ve no idea of who is doing what or where. If you’re singing that evening, I hope the music is both meaningful and beautiful.
My last note is a salute to the work of the Repertory Opera Company for its ingenuity and perseverance in outreach and cooperation (although they will probably call their efforts promotion, not outreach). In the last three years the ROC has initiated program ad exchanges with both of the local chorales, among others; it has taken the opportunity to join in at least one multiple church choir benefit concert for local hunger relief, helping make that event a success; it has also found a grant to fund and execute a special opera performance for a couple hundred Pomona high school students, helping to expose students to the kinds of music they would be unlikely to hear otherwise. In doing these things, the Repertory Opera Company has been setting an example in how to do good with others for the good of all, even while exposing others to their particular art.
My musical link for this week is a little encouragement from Thomas Morley for our art by way of the the King’s Singers: