This March will have a much different shape, chorally, than last year, when the vast majority of chorus sounds were sung and heard on the last two weekends of the month. This year March has a regular flow to it, with something choral involving local churches, church choirs, colleges, chorales, or local directors of the same spread across the month. There will be chant and opera chorus, and Renaissance and Classical music, music sedate and excited, and more.
The first weekend brings features the Mountainside Master Chorale celebrating its twentieth season in a program called “Yesterday and Beyond: MMC Favorites Through the Years,” in Pomona. MMC will be directed by four of those who have stood at their podium over the years. The concerts are on Saturday at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday at 3:30 p.m., in Pomona.
Later in the first week, on Thursday, March 6, the Cal Poly Pomona Chamber Singers and Concert Choir will present the only public performance by a local college choral program in March, a program called “Calling All Angels” at Cal Poly Pomona.
The second weekend of March begins with a concert a few miles farther away, but involving one of our local choral directors. The Inland Master Chorale will present “Music of Love & Loss” at 8:00 p.m. Saturday, March 8, and 3:00 p.m., Sunday, March 9 in Redlands. That same Sunday, March 9, the Chapel of Charlemagne will present chants of the Lenten season in “Chants for the Labyrinth,” at 5:30 p.m. to raise funds for a permanent labyrinth at St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Claremont.
On the afternoon of the third Sunday in March, the 16th, two much different choral activities are offered. At 2:00 p.m., in Pomona, the Mountainside Master Chorale is holding an Elijah Sing-Along, in which we can join in practicing Mendelssohn’s Elijah, its season ending work. Meanwhile, at 3:30 p.m. on the other side of our area, choirs and singers (including some operatic types) from the cities of Pomona, Ontario, Chino, Cucamonga and Upland will gather for ‘Bread On The Waters; Feeding hope through song’ a benefit concert for area hunger relief in the Sanctuary of the First United Methodist Church of Upland.
The fourth Saturday of March, on the 22nd, features the Claremont Chorale in “The Happy Wanderers,” a program of composers’ musical reflections on the Roma, or gypsies. The program, at 3:30 p.m. in Little Bridges in Claremont, includes the Zigeunerlieder by Brahms and the Romancero Gitano of Castelnuevo-Tedesco.
The next taste of choral music will be part of the Musicians Club of Pomona Valley program at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 25, at Pilgrim Congregational Church, in Pomona. The Seven Last Words of Christ, by Dubois, will be sung by the Pilgrim Church choir.
The final taste of choral music in March will be on the 29th and 30th,, the last weekend in March. It is just a taste, in Cosi Fan Tutte, as the Repertory Opera Company’s begins two weekends of Mozart’s opera in Pomona.
The next time this page appears, there may be hints of the March music missed here, from all the choirs already beginning work for the period that begins this Wednesday, and ends with the other peak on the Christian calendar, Easter.
Here are some links to music you can hear around here in March:
Romancero Gitano Castelnuovo-Tedesco