Choralescence

The End Is Near!

Yes, the year is going, going…and maybe the last choral sound you’ll hear this most choir happy month will be a friendly chorus of ‘Auld lang syne.’

The next such singing for you could be a church choir rehearsal, or it could be joining in the Mountainside Master Chorale sing along on Sunday, 6 January, where you can sing the Dubois ‘Seven Last Words of Christ,’ and the Lauridsen ‘Lux Aeterna,’ as the chorale begins preparing for its 24th of March concert.

If Haydn is to your taste, and you are a skilled choral singer, you could attend the first rehearsal of the Claremont Chorale of Haydn’s oratorio ‘The Seasons,’ on Monday, 7 January, as the chorale prepares for its concert of Saturday, 23 March. The chorale web-site invites prospective singers to attend this rehearsal and arrange an audition. A taste of the Dubois and a bit of the Haydn (in German) is available on Youtube by clicking on the links below.

Dubois, Seven Last Words of Christ – First Word

Haydn, The Seasons – Spring: introduction and spring chorus.

Because one of our choral community (living between our two endpost colleges) is taking part, here’s an event farther afield in both distance and musical period from the events above: the Jouyssance concerts in Los Angeles and Pasadena on the 5th and 6th of January.

Anthem treasure hunt: If you sing in or direct a church choir or have heard any Lenten choir anthems, you’re invited to take part in a Lenten anthem treasure hunt, before Lent begins in February. Just suggest a couple of good anthems for Ash Wednesday through Easter, either well loved treasures from your choir’s library, or new favorites of this season to be, and use the comments function of this site soon, and soon, hopefully, a list of such treasures should appear here.

Have you news of local special music? Please pass on other special choral music in our area (from Walnut to Rancho Cucamonga, from Mt. Baldy Villlage to Chino Hills, or by someone who sings or directs choral music here, even if it is to happen elsewhere) so that it may find its way to future postings on this site. Special anthems yes, but especially anything where two or more groups or churches join together chorally.

Here’s one more link for you, because some friends will be singing Tallis, Byrd and Campion at a benefit concert in February: the Hilliard Ensemble singing ‘O nata lux.’

Let’s all sing in the New Year!

Just in case you haven’t had your fill of choir this season, or are looking for just the right experience, here are a few places, dates and times to find choirs, or in one case, be the choir, and everyone here is singing something right for the season. Most are church choirs, two are independent chorales, and one is the chamber choir that sang a week ago in Claremont, singing now without the big choir. Enjoy!

Friday, 14 December
12:15 p.m. – The Claremont Chamber Choir, Claremont

Saturday, 15 December
7:30 p.m. – Mountainside Master Chorale, Claremont
8:00 p.m. – Inland Master Chorale, Redlands.

Sunday, 16 December
10:00 a.m. Claremont Presbyterian Church, “Behold the Star! A Christmas Journey…,” by Lloyd Larson, with Sanctuary and youth choirs.
10:00 a.m. First Presbyterian Church of Upland, worship service with choirs and orchestra
3:00 p.m. – Inland Master Chorale, Redlands
3:30 pm. Mountainside Master Chorale, Claremont
4:00 p.m. Claremont United Methodist Church – “Amahl and the Night Visitors” Youth Theatre and Sanctuary choir
5:00 p.m. St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Claremont, Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols
7:00 p.m. San Dimas United Methodist Church Chancel Choir presents “Lead me back to Bethlehem,” 114 West 2nd Street, San Dimas

Sunday, 23 December
9:30 a.m. Cucamonga United Methodist Church, the CUMC Chancel choir presents the cantata “Heaven’s Child” by Pepper Choplin
9:30 a.m. First United Methodist Church, Upland – Cathedral Choir and youth present “Behold the Star! A Christmas journey…” in morning worship service
10:00 a.m. Claremont Presbyterian Church morning services, “Carols and Lullabies: Christmas in the Southwest,” by Conrad Susa, the Sanctuary Choir
10:00 a.m La Verne United Methodist Church, “Star Carol,” by Burt with choir
10:30 a.m. Chino United Methodist Church, service choir anthem
1:30 p.m. Claremont Symphony Orchestra, Annual Messiah Sing, and Corelli Christmas concerto, Bridges Hall of Music, Pomona College, Claremont, Free
4:00 p.m. Claremont Symphony Orchestra, Annual Messiah Sing, and Corelli Christmas concerto, Bridges Hall of Music, Pomona College, Claremont, Free
7:00 p.m. Pomona First Baptist Church – “The Gift” with choir and orchestra

Monday, 24 December – Christmas Eve
3:30 p.m. St. Anthony Catholic Church, Upland, with children’s choir
4:00 p.m. Pomona First Baptist Church – “The Gift” with choir and orchestra
4:00 p.m. St. Denis Catholic Church, Diamond Bar, Children’s choir
4:00 p.m. St. Joseph Catholic Church, Upland, Family Mass with choir and handbells
4:30 p.m. Grace Lutheran Church, Upland with children’s choir
6:00 p.m. La Verne United Methodist Church, “Still, Still, Still” and “O Holy Night” by choir
6:00 p.m. Ontario First Church of the Nazarene, Cantata “Gloria” by Doug Holck, with Sanctuary Choir and instrumental ensemble
6:00 p.m. St. Joseph Catholic Church, Upland, Spanish Mass with choir
6:00 p.m. Upland Brethren in Christ Church, three choir anthems
6:30/7:00 p.m. Pilgrim Congregational Church, Pomona, Pilgrim Choir, children’s and handbell choirs, pre-service music at 6:30 p.m.
6:30 p.m. Trinity United Methodist Church, Ontario, choir singing “Unless You Consider the Child,” and “The Little Drummer Boy”
7:00 p.m. Bethel Congregational Church, Ontario – “Prince of Peace” service, with choir
7:00 p.m. Claremont United Methodist Church, Lessons and Carols with Choir
7:00 p.m. Chino United Methodist Church, Candlelight service, choir with oboe
7:00 p.m. Pomona First Baptist Church – “The Gift” with choir and orchestra
7:00 p.m. St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Pomona, service with choir
7:00 p.m. Walnut United Methodist Church, service with choir
7:00 p.m. Westminster Presbyterian Church, Ontario, service with choir
8:00 p.m. First Christian Church Pomona, Candlelight Communion service with Chancel Choir
9:00 p.m. Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Claremont, service with choir
9:00 p.m. La Verne Church of the Brethren – “A Child is Born,” with Chancel Choir
9:30 p.m. St. Anthony Catholic Church, Upland, adult choir
10:00 p.m. First United Methodist Church of Upland late service with Cathedral Choir
10:30 p.m./11:00 p.m. St Mark’s Episcopal, Upland, Pre-service music, 10:30 p.m.; Choral Eucharist. 11:00 p.m. with choir
11:00 p.m. Claremont United Church of Christ, Congregational, ‘Hallelujah’ service, with Chancel Choir
11:00 p.m. Claremont Presbyterian Church, Candlelight Lessons and Carols, with Sanctuary Choir
11:00 p.m. First Presbyterian Church of Upland, Communion/Candlelight service with FPC choir
11:00 p.m. St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Claremont, Christmas Eve Service with choir
12:00 a.m. St. Denis Catholic Church, Diamond Bar, Parish choirs

Tuesday, 25 December – Christmas Day
7:30 a.m. St. Denis Catholic Church, Diamond Bar, Contemporary Choir
9:00 a.m. St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Pomona, service with choir
10:00 a.m. St. Joseph Catholic Church, Upland, Mass with choir
10:30 a.m. St. Denis Catholic Church, Diamond Bar, Adult Choir
12:00 p.m. St. Joseph Catholic Church, Upland, Spanish Mass with choir
1:30 p.m. St. Denis Catholic Church, Diamond Bar, Filipino Choir
5:30 p.m. St. Denis Catholic Church, Diamond Bar, Youth Choir

Saturday, 29 December
7:30 p.m. St. Denis Catholic Church, Diamond Bar, San Gabriel Filipino Choir at St. Denis

And for those who won’t get to hear the Byrd today, here’s another link to the Tallis Scholars, this time to the Kyrie:

Kyrie, Byrd Mass for four voices

What? It’s December already? Did I miss any of the annual choir stampede? Not as a singer: I’ve already sung in my longest choral concert of the season, and I’m nearly half done with seasonal singing. As listener, there have been concerts I’ve missed the last two weeks, but there are still concerts and services enough to catch before both season and year have fled. It’s impossible as usual to attend all such events, with only 24 days and fewer weekends for ensembles to schedule concerts meaning some inevitable simultaneity.

If you have a hankering for voices singing together I’ve some possibilities for you now, beginning with tomorrow, Friday, 7 December. At 8:00 p.m., The Claremont Concert Choir and the Chamber Choir Holiday Choral Concert is happening at the Claremont United Church of Christ, Congregational. Expect Christmas favorites, including from Handel’s Messiah, and perhaps some Byrd by the Chamber Choir.

The following day you could start by heading to Morgan Auditorium at the University of La Verne at 4 p.m., for the Winter Concert of the University of La Verne Chamber Singers and Chorale. Then after a spot of dinner, you could find your way to the Chaffey College Theatre for the 7:30 p.m. performance of their Winter Choral Concert, titled “Faith, Hope and Love.”

The following Friday afternoon, at 12:15 p.m., The Claremont Chamber Choir will be on its own with one of the Friday’s at Noon concert series concerts with a selection of Christmas fare, and the promise of the entire Byrd Mass of Four Voices (part of which you may hear tomorrow). Then, at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, 15 December, and 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, 16 December, the Mountainside Master Chorale will be offering their Christmas Fantasia at the Claremont United Church of Christ, Congregational. This concert features music by Handel, Rutter, Finzi and Vaughan Williams.

If these opportunities aren’t enough for you, there may be a ticket left to an Elizabethan Dinner in Upland, and any number of church events through Christmas Eve, including an Amahl and the Night Visitors at the Claremont United Methodist Church to consider. It’s prime time to get your tank full of choral music, for these concerts are always followed by a great lull in such music leaving us with little to hear until winter leaves in March.
____________________________________________________

For those of you with a particular taste in the Byrd to be heard tomorrow and next week, I’m tossing in links to part of the same performed by the most excellent Tallis Scholars. Let this whet your appetite to hear it done live here.

Gloria, Byrd Mass for Four voices
——————————–
Agnus Dei, Byrd Mass for four voices

Enjoy yourselves!

Though old Ben Franklin wasn’t talking about choirs in 1776 when he talked of the risks of not ‘hanging together,’ maybe it’s not too big a stretch to apply it to our choral community. In 1776, the signers needed to cooperate with each other to protect the whole, or else. We don’t face British bayonets or ropes, but there are plenty of other threats, including cuts to arts education and decreasing exposure by youth to our art, the multiplying of media and leisure alternatives, economic pressures on leisure time, the shifting nature of music in church, etc.

In case these threats seem overblown, let’s look at some NEA numbers. In 1992 and 2008 about the same number of adults said they had sung at least once chorally in the past year, but the adult population ot the U.S. grew by the tens of millions over that time, so the percentage of adults participating in choir has actually decreased by about a fifth.

We don’t need to look to survey data, though, to get a picture of the road we’re on. We can look at our choirs. I had the chance to attend a church choir festival today, and take a look at the choirs singing. The good news was that there was a children’s choir from one church. However, once you adjusted your sights to the adult groups, singers appearing under thirty were rare, and those with hair grayer than mine were in the clear majority.

A scientific sample? Absolutely not.
Something to ponder? Absolutely.

Obviously, we’re already ‘hanging separately.’ Individual efforts by individual directors and churches seem to be hit or miss, with the number of misses being greater than places where the youth of the church are learning to love choral singing.

Can we learn how to ‘hang together,’ to support choir singing in church and community? I certainly hope so. It’s about time to talk about it.

It’s fall, let the music flow

Though the weather seems fixed on summer, fall has actually arrived. Long months with a mere trickle of choral stuff are over. Church choirs are back in session, with some having sung several anthems already, and others polishing off the rust as they return to learning. One church even as I write is doing their annual penance for summer ease, spending the long afternoon ‘sweating over hot’ scores in preparation for the year.

Directors at local high schools, with school calendars creeping earlier each year, have been reminding students of music skills they forgot over summer for two months, and initiating freshmen into the mysteries of choral singing SATB with real basses, etc., etc..

Two of our local chorales (Claremont Chorale, Mountainside Master Chorale) began preparing Christmas programs the week after Labor Day, and have reached the point where singers wanting to join must wait until January. Other local chorales are somewhere working on the same incongruity of singing about Christmas on days when the thermometers are in triple digits.

There’s even one combined event for you to sample, in just three weeks in Pomona. Some ten Methodist choirs will be coming to the Trinity United Methodist church on the afternoon of 21 October for their annual get together.

Fall, finally!

Not much of July left, and summer is going fast, too. My search for choral activities has yielded just one opportunity for this month, tomorrow (Sunday July 29) out in Santa Barbara. The choir of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, is ending its West Coast tour in a joint concert with the Santa Barbara Quire of Voyces. Dr. David Skinner, the touring choir’s director, is an expert in early music performance and his choir is known for its performance of 16th century music.

Too late and too far away was the chance to hear the joint rehearsal for this concert earlier tonight.

If they were just an hour closer, I would have tried.

Still looking for choral learning activities of all periods in our area (meaning under 50 miles) with decreasing estimates of success.

Maybe next year we can bring the experts to us? Until then there’s still the choice of ‘growing your own,’ if you have friends of similar tastes. More on that later.

We’re in the doldrums now, summer time, when my church’s choir is done, the chorale season is over and college and school directors are doing whatever they do to revitalize between seasons.

That doesn’t mean that there’s nothing that eager singers, directors or choral fans couldn’t do if there was a hankering to do something choral. I’m researching some of the stuff others do, mostly in places miles away, and things some of my choral friends are planning to do with their summers.

Can’t tell you more now, but if you have your own suggestions, send them in!

Next time: some ideas for summer.

Chorales, school and collegiate choruses pretty much all follow the rhythm of the school year, meaning that we would expect most such ensembles to be at the end of their seasons, if not done already. If you assumed that the local groups are done, you would be mostly right. However, two local chorales and one college choral department, four ensembles in all, are offering their end of season performances in the next two weeks. These concerts are listed below with links to the group’s sites for more information.

From these concerts until mid fall most opportunities to hear choral music in our area will be in church, in small doses and under very varied conditions. This makes me think of one of those highway signs starting with the words “Last chance…”

Of course, any news of summer singing that reaches me will appear here, along with other tidbits about singing opportunities that can be found to share.

Mount San Antonio College Spring Celebration of Choral Music
Friday, 1 June 2012 at 8 p.m., Walnut

The Claremont Chorale, “Songs of the Earth”
Saturday, 2 June 2012 at 3 p.m., Claremont

Mount San Antonio College Spring Celebration of Choral Music
Saturday, 2 June 2012 at 8 p.m., Walnut

The Mountainside Master Chorale, “Long Time Ago”
Sunday, 10 June 2012, 3:30 p.m., Claremont

At the risk of being boring, here’s the usual disclaimer – I am a beginner at this and really don’t know much about the ways of blogging. Case in point – I have yet to approve a single comment (though a few have been submitted), because I don’t know what the result would be, and what would the result of a reply, offered as a function on WordPress. As in other things, I’m hoping for helpful reader feedback.

Now on to the other feedback I want, to help improve my own knowledge, and maybe to help me help others. Today I’ve spent a little time looking online for the characteristics of a church choir conductor. I found an interesting bit on ChoralNet as various directors gave advice to a high school student’s questions, all aimed at identifying the most important quality for great director. Very interesting, and worth some followup analysis, I think, but not quite what I was seeking. I also found some job descriptions and a few other items that could yet be of help, but would be hard to give the kind if insight I need. What I think I want here is the expertise of whoever happens to read this, if you’re willing to help.

And you are an expert if you’ve ever sung in a church choir, if you’ve ever played for a church choir or if you’ve ever directed a church choir, for no matter how long. So now that you’re a qualified expert, please consider this question for me: what are three different jobs (think skills, maybe) of a church choir director? Your answers will be appreciated now or next week or next year, even. Anytime.

And of course, I’d love to hear of any choirs or choruses at home in the area from east Cucamonga to west Walnut, from south Chino to Mt. Baldy.

Hoping to hear from you.

I’m still unsure of how I should accomplish a variety of the goals for this experiment, such as how to feature upcoming events in a regular way. For now, I’ll just mention that you have three concerts that I know available to attend between now and Sunday June 10.

First is probably the last collegiate concert of the school year for any of the colleges and universities mentioned before, this one being at Cal Poly on Thursday. There’s information about their concert online for you to check out.

Next, two of probably four area chorales have different themed concerts on 2 June and 10 June. Just to tell you how flexible a theme can be, the two groups will share one piece, and two versions of another. Two find out more, I would encourage to look up the Claremont Chorale and the Mountainside Master Chorale web-sites, and maybe go hear both.

A last item for now concerns the lack of research available to anyone considering how to encourage the growth of music in the target area for this blog, either general information about choral organizations, or about the choral life in our area. It seems plain enough that is one place to start learning whatever we need to know, such as simple facts like how many choirs are around, and where are they?

So here’s today’s question: Do you know of a choir, any choir, of any level or kind, that has its home in the area from Cucamonga to Walnut, from the south side of Chino to Mt. Baldy? If you do, just reply and we’ll start this little effort together to build a better choral community.