The texts are about the winter solstice in New Mexico, a very special time and place. They are not Christmas texts, yet the passing of the winter solstice is, of course, often associated with the Christmas hope of renewal. What I have tried to write, with these poems as inspiration, is “night music”, a genre which I have always loved. Also, while the landscapes are New Mexican, I hope that the beauty of the texts and the winter solstice theme will still attract interest from choir directors and audiences in the larger choral world.
Sherri, Aidan, and I had a great time in Santa Fe during the week of the premiere with our hosts Linda and Jim Beck. Aidan especially enjoyed our own little casita with all its little pathways -- what a magical week! We also met Natalie Goldberg, who now lives in Santa Fe, and whose poetry I have set to music (My Friend Elijah, and Into this World) and really had a great time getting to know the main poet for this piece, Lonnie Howard. Lonnie's energy was so warm and positive -- just a wonderful person in so many ways.
Yes dear friends, we need more people blogging about classical music and especially our art of choral music, won't you enter in? Well one brilliant fellow who has been at it quite awhile is Richard Sparks, a most awesome musician with an amazing amount of musical experience all across the globe. Richard's blog is titled "Richard Sparks- Music, Conducting, Choirs". Well that's straight and to the point, no mention of Saint Olaf lutefisk dinners, wookies, or retrograde hemiolas- I say keep it that way, don't distract the readers, eh? You can read Richard's wonderful posts here:
What made me want to reference this currently is that Richard blogged a few days ago about the NCCO conference (which my blog dissected completely via 3,122 posts and which I am still recuperating from via really cheap wine from Trader Joe's) and he mentioned something which I totally missed and which I now feel stupid about (especially since I studied under Ben Johnston for awhile- a master of tuning systems)--namely the tuning options in early music, including the Bach which Helmuth Rilling conducted at NCCO. Richard is not critical of Rilling, he simply points out the options available and so on and it is great reading. And just earlier tonight via email he elaborated even more to me- I am hoping he will add those elaborations to his blog soon. So keep an eye out for that as you check back on on his blog.
Richard now teaches at the University of North Texas alongside Jerry McCoy. UNT is a leader in live streaming their choral concerts. The live stream info can be found here:
http://recording.music.unt.edu/index.php/liveAlso, Richard's Collegium performances, whose broadcasts are not as restricted (under copyright law), can be found on YouTube here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/untrecservIt's amazing the amount of resources we have today that us old folks didn't have "back in the day". Hmmm...I still have my eight year old sort of believing I grew up with dinosaurs. And heck, he doesn't even really know what a videocassette tape was/is, or for that matter a vinyl LP, blah blah, blah.
Anyway, here is some of what Richard wrote about Bach and some tuning ideas (yes, my immediate thought was too many choirs rehearsing with a piano present-- with the piano's percussive, uber high major thirds overwhelming the ear!). But to read the entire Sparks blog on this subject please go here
And now excerpts from Richard:
"I was able to attend the NCCO (National Collegiate Choral Organization) conference in Colorado Springs in early November.
It was a marvelous conference with both excellent concerts/choirs and sessions.
Helmuth Rilling was the headliner, working with James Kim's excellent CSU Chamber Choir. Everyone knows Rilling's work, of course, from his Gächinger Kantorei and Bach-Collegium Stuttgart and his work since 1970 with the Oregon Bach Festival.
Certainly, his work had a big impact on me. As an undergraduate I was tremendously interested in baroque music and got to know his recordings and those of Wilhelm Ehmann, among others. In 1971 the University of Washington Chorale, under the direction of Rod Eichenberger, took part in one of the Vienna Symposiums organized by Paul Koutney..."
"Since I've done lots of work with period instruments (it's one of the reasons the job at UNT was intriguing to me, and certainly one of the reasons I got the job)--the Bach Ensemble in Seattle from 1978-80 began using period instruments--my ideas about performance have changed as well.
With that in mind, it was interesting to listen to the concert at the NCCO, which had two motets (Singet dem Herrn and Jesu, meine Freude) plus the Magnificat. I found that there were two things that struck me most strongly: some aspects of phrasing and the tuning of major thirds. As I mentioned, Rilling has certainly changed many things about the way he phrases baroque music (with the example of the Kyrie in the B Minor), but there are other aspects where my way of phrasing has changed.
In addition, I've gotten so used to different tuning systems that my ear now wants a considerably lower/pure major third, particularly at cadences. For me, the thirds I heard in Colorado were far too "jangly," the only way I can describe the difference between the "beats" of a tempered third and the beatless relative calm of a pure third (the purity refers to a major third which matches the third heard in the natural harmonic series.
Since I'd just done Jesu, meine Freude with my Collegium Singers at UNT, that was very fresh in my mind. Given what I've said, it's only fair that I provide a link to what we did, not that I'm claiming anything for it, but it represents in a more concrete way what can only be expressed poorly in writing. You can find that performance here: the Bach begins at 1:04 (that's one hour, four minutes). You'll know it's live, not only because it's on video with no possibility of editing, but also because our organist (the fabulous Christoph Hammer) played a decidedly non-picardy third at the end of one of the movements! We were using Vallotti for tuning the organ, a decent compromise for this program, which was mostly mid-baroque from northern Germany (Buxtehude, particularly). For other repertoire (Monteverdi Vespers, for example) we've used quarter-comma meantone, which has extremely pure thirds (in some keys!)."
Here are the articles- hope you enjoy reading them:
From the Wall Street Journal Online Dec., 13, 2011
by Brett Campbell
'We love classical music. We love playing classical music. We love listening to classical music. We are tired of the elitist and inaccessible nature of the classical world. We believe that there are many that would enjoy classical music if they could access it in a setting that is comfortable for them. We believe classical musicians should be allowed to perform in a setting that is more casual—where the audience is allowed to have a drink, eat a scone, laugh a little, and clap a lot. We believe everyone can enjoy the music that we love." So began a 2006 posting on Portland's Craigslist that became the manifesto for Classical Revolution PDX, which today draws on a roster of more than 200 classical musicians for its chamber jams and other performances, including a concert called "Sympathy for the Devil" featuring music associated with you-know-who.
That show was a co-production with Portland's Electric Opera Company, which plays classical music on electric guitars and other rock instruments. More than a dozen such alt-classical ensembles have emerged here in the past few years, enlivening a city better known nationally for bikes, brews, baristas, beards, the television show "Portlandia," and a thriving indie-rock scene that boasts such bands as the Decemberists. The city teems with organizations presenting new music, old music in clubs, or both.
The Portland Cello Project's all-cello performances of original arrangements of everything from Beethoven to Britney Spears regularly sell out some of the city's biggest clubs and attract guest vocalists from the city's indie-rock scene. The group has been touring nationally for the past three years and is recording its fourth CD. Its holiday concerts this Friday and Saturday will feature music by composers ranging from Bach, Khachaturian and Lili Boulanger to Lil' Wayne.
Opera Theater Oregon stages cheeky, low-budget productions of classic operas (including Wagner's "Das Rheingold" reimagined as a "Baywatch" episode). Several vocal ensembles, drawn from the city's strong choral-music scene, devote considerable programming to contemporary, often homegrown music. The young Cascadia Composers organization will stage at least eight concerts of music by Oregon composers this year. Improvising musicians have a jazz composers orchestra and an avant-garde presenting series. Two more new-music groups launched this year, and this fall three different organizations presented programs dominated by new music by women composers—electronic, choral and contemporary classical—most from the Pacific Northwest.
This fall also saw CD releases and national tours by both Vagabond Opera, a "Balkan Arabic Klezmer-based, original absurdist cabaret ensemble," led by Eric Stern, a former opera tenor, and the March Fourth Marching Band, which plays original and cover tunes of funk, rock and dance music on its brass instruments.
What's fueling Portland's alt-classical surge? "There's a growing sense with the current generation of performers that those jobs they trained for aren't there, so you have to make your own opportunities," says Katie Taylor, former producing artistic director of Opera Theater Oregon, "and while you're at it, build a new audience."
The West Coast's most affordable cultural center, Portland offers numerous attractions to exploratory classical musicians. "The city itself is a desirable place to live, particularly to those interested in the arts and being around other artists," explains composer Galen Huckins, who runs Filmusik, which sets old films to original live music by various local composers at historic theaters. "Having so many top-tier players around, many of whom have full-time jobs outside of music, means that there's a wealth of players excited to be part of new groups and experiment with emerging organizations."
Many of the alt-classical adventurers share a collaborative spirit. "Relative to other places where I've lived and worked, Portland has an incredibly vibrant and dynamic alternative classical-music scene," says Katherine FitzGibbon, who moved to Portland from Boston in 2008 to direct choral programming at Lewis & Clark College. 
Her Resonance Ensemble regularly programs contemporary and 20th-century choral music, and collaborates with poets, painters, dancers and other artists. "Everyone wants everybody else's group to be successful," she says. "Everybody's looking for ways to deepen the performing experience and the audience experience as well."The entrepenurial newcomers are building on groundwork laid over the past 20 years by the busy new-music ensembles FearNoMusic and Third Angle, which have shown listeners that "art music has re-established its claim to beauty," says Third Angle director and Oregon Symphony violinist Ron Blessinger. "Audiences and artists have gotten away from the attitude that it has to be incomprehensible to be art. Our geography helps. We don't have proximity to major cultural centers, so we have this laboratory here where the independent creative culture of Portland gives you permission to be creative."
Opera Theater's Ms. Taylor predicts that the alt-classical scene will continue to blossom. "I would expect more busking and original film projects, and more happening online," she says. "And you'll see more traditional groups applying these alternative methods to build their audiences. I also think heavy turnover is going to become the norm."
The venerable Portland Opera invited both Opera Theater Oregon and Electric Opera to perform at a street party outside its season-opening concert. The 40-year-old Chamber Music Northwest and old-line Portland Piano International, seeing the younger audiences flocking to alt-classical performances, have been presenting less-traditional concerts in some of the same venues.
Still, Ms. Taylor's own experience shows that chronic underfunding makes the alt-classical scene as risky financially as it is musically. Staging even a small-scale opera costs a lot more than bringing a string quartet into a club, and after five years shepherding Opera Theater Oregon to increasing artistic success and burgeoning audiences, she still wound up in debt, and stepped down as producing artistic director this summer.
"Our last show involving filmed elements required sophisticated equipment—software, HD cameras, lighting—the sheer number of people involved made it superexpensive just to feed them, which is the only pay people got," she says. "The longer you do something, the less likely people want to pitch in for free."
Such obstacles don't seem to discourage Portland's many alt-classical musicians. Next spring, composer Bob Priest's annual March Music Moderne festival, involving both alternative and traditional classical groups, will incorporate at least two dozen new music-spiced events featuring about 100 20th- and 21st-century works.
"Portland has never liked being told how to behave or what to do," says pianist Maria Choban, locally renowned for electrifying performances of contemporary and classic repertoire. "I think this is why it's so fertile for spawning a 'bad-boy' alt-classical music scene. We might be the geographic location most likely to give classical music a much needed blood transfusion, in the same way Seattle was for pop when it spawned grunge."
From Oregonmusicnews.com
by James Bash
Portland is a haven for choral singers, including the select few who are paid to sing in choirs. One of the very best singers in this specialized profession is Stephanie Kramer. I’ve heard Kramer sing at a number of choral concerts and have found her name listed in several recordings, including the latest Portland Baroque Recording of the St. John Passion. So, I got in contact with her to find out more about her work as a professional choral singer.
Tell us a little about your background as a singer. Have you been singing for a long time?
Kramer: I’ve been singing as long as I can remember. Music is a part of my heritage. My mom sang in her high school choir and her church choir. My grandmother taught piano and played organ at the same Lutheran church for sixty years. She started when she was twelve and played until she was seventy-two.
I grew up in little towns, singing in school and at church. Growing up Lutheran played a big part. As Garrison Keillor says, ‘Lutherans are bred to sing in four-part harmony.’ I also had a great high school director, John Baker at Rex Putnam, who taught us music theory and sight singing.
I went to Concordia University in Portland for a couple of years and then transferred to Portland State University where I sang under Dr. Bruce Browne. I sang for him in the PSU Chamber Choir. That led to singing in Choral Cross-Ties, which was a professional vocal ensemble. I ended up singing with Choral Cross-Ties for ten years. One of the highlights of my early career was returning to my high school and performing with CCT as a professional choral singer.
How many choirs are you singing with now?
Kramer: I’m singing with several professional choirs. I mainly sing with Cappella Romana, under the direction of Dr. Alexander Lingas, and Resonance Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Katherine FitzGibbon. I also frequently sing with Trinity Episcopal and Cantores in Ecclesia. Looking back over my career, I’ve sung with many of the groups in town: Oregon Repertory Singers, Portland Symphonic Choir, Portland Pro Musica, and Portland Opera Chorus. I’ve had quite a few church choir jobs.
There must be times when you could be in a rehearsal or concert every night of the week.
Kramer: Right! Certain months can be very busy. Last March I had a crazy schedule… performing, touring, and recording the St. John Passion with PBO, and then going directly from that to a tour to San Francisco with Cappella Romana. I think that I had something every night. August was like that too, with the William Byrd Festival and preparing for the Greece tour with Cappella Romana. December, of course, is always full. This is my fourteenth year in a row to sing the Messiah with PBO, and I never get tired of it!
So some gigs have taken you to foreign countries?
Kramer: I’ve been to France with Cantores in Ecclesia, and to London, England and Greece in two separate tours with Cappella Romana. I also took some wonderful trips when I was in the PSU Chamber Choir, including a tour to the Czech Republic.
Are you a soprano or an alto?
Kramer: I sing a little of both. I have a pretty big range and an ability to blend with different vocal timbres. I’m singing alto this week in the Vaughan Williams Hodie with the choir at Trinity. Next week I’m singing soprano in Handel’s Messiah with Portland Baroque Orchestra. Then I go back to singing alto for the Rachmaninoff All Night Vigil with Cappella Romana.
Do you ever do solos?
Kramer: I’ve done some – usually within the context of a choral concert. But I’ve never truly had the desire to be a soloist. Over the years, I’ve found that singing in small ensembles is really my niche. Ensemble singing requires a different skill set than singing solos. It just suits my personality better.
Have you every counted how many languages you’ve sung?
Kramer: Oh no! I’ve lost count of that a long time ago. But some of the more interesting and challenging languages I’ve sung in are Czech, Finnish, Serbian, Russian, and Greek. Having a good ear to hone the language skills is a great asset.
Do you teach voice?
Kramer: No. I’ve never felt that I had the gift of teaching. So that is not something that I’ve been inspired to do. But I have mentored a few younger singers, and am a hundred percent supportive of music and arts education in our schools.
Then do you have a day job in addition to your choral singing?
Kramer: Yes. I work part-time at Oregon Catholic Press in its recordings department. Many of my professional singing friends teach voice or conduct school or church choirs. I’m also the Managing Director of Resonance Ensemble, and I do some administrative work for Cappella Romana.
I feel extremely blessed to have a job in music.
How many recordings have you done?
Kramer: I’ve probably done more than fifty recordings with Oregon Catholic Press. I’ve been singing for them since 1996; so it adds up after a while. I think that I’ve done about twelve CDs with Cappella Romana. The most recent release is our recording of the Bach St. John Passion with Portland Baroque Orchestra. Cappella Romana also just recorded a new CD when we were on tour in Greece. It’s been a wonderful year!
Are recordings more difficult than singing for a live audience?
Kramer: Yes! I find that it’s difficult to keep the same energy that you have when you are in front of an audience. Sometimes I try to picture the people who might listen to the recording – like my mom. That seems to help me.
Recording sessions have their pitfalls. Sometimes (especially in large works) you have to take sections of music out of order. That can disrupt the flow of the music. And of course it’s always frustrating when you have to stop in the middle of a great take because of a motorcycle going by or a rooster crowing.
A rooster crowing?
Kramer: That happened on the Greece tour. We were recording in a lovely little country church on the island of Paros, and a rooster crowed during one of our takes. We all burst out laughing. Singing, and all of the experiences that come along with it, is one of the greatest joys of my life.
Paraphrased from the NCCO website:
"At this year's conference the National Collegiate Choral Organization was pleased to announce that four outstanding choral compositions had been chosen as the inaugural selections for the NCCO Choral Music Series. These works were presented in a literature session at the 2011 NCCO Conference, on Sat, Nov. 5 at Fort Collins, CO, at Colorado State University.
The composers and titles of the selected compositions are:
These compositions will soon available for purchase from NCCO. An NCCO membership is not be a requirement for purchasing the scores."
PC speaking now- NCCO took this step into publishing and championing of new choral music to fill a vacuum in the world created by the conventional publishers overload on music that is either too simple or too simple-minded. I wholeheartedly love that instead of complaining about the conventional publishers they went the next step and are trying to solve the problem, even if it is just baby steps for the time being. They also chose to break the publishers' mold- and I was happy to be consulted on how to do this- for instance NCCO is not taking ownership of the composers' copyrights, the royalty level is far more favorable for the composers and other new ideas which the conventional publishers ought to sit up and take notice of, in my opinion. My participation in this was informal, but I have to day that I was honored that Buddy James desired my input so much. Buddy, Bill & Bill, Lisa, Sarah, and Mitos- you got this right and I hope it grows and grows. And I would also like to add that the score layout of these pieces is highly professional. Great job there too!
Hopefully more info will be up at http://www.ncco-usa.org/ soon about these pieces.
So to finally wrap up the NCCO conference- it was beyond great. I had so much fun and heard so much inspired singing and met so many wonderful people. And guess what-- on the bus shuttle going south from Ft. Collins down to Denver I actually saw a mountain lion just a hundred yards from the highway- at first I couldn't believe my eyes!
Thanks for reading, folks!
"I am honored more than I can say by this award, and also totally humbled by the fact that I’m standing on the stage before wonderful music is going to be made here. I will be brief in my remarks so we can get to that. I want to thank NCCO for inviting me here, and giving me the chance to be with a delightfully enthusiastic and varied group of people who love what I love, vocal music, and are searching after its many means of expression, with true humor and intelligence and diligence.
We are all here because we have ears. We are taking part in a tradition that goes back to the beginning of the human race, wherever we can find it: people have always listened. People have always learned songs and carried them on. The styles of music vary enormously, as do the languages in which people sing, but the reality is that music is a form of expression that we humans share all over the world. It does something for us that nothing else can do. Words are a basic part of it, but what happens when we combine words and rhythms and tones, is really miraculous. And what it allows for us is a language for our emotions, for sharing in those things which are most human about us and which unite us one to another. All of the different walls of race and color and age and language, political beliefs, everything else falls when we begin to sing together. And I can only wish that all the world would do a lot more singing. That if our Congress always sang a folk song to remind them of our common beliefs, we might be better off. And the same thing at the United Nations. Our rational brains get us into trouble. They are amazing things, but they get us into trouble when they are not balanced by our intuitive brains. And I honestly believe that when I am singing, or making music in this way, I am using all of the faculties at my disposal in a way that nothing else challenges me to do. My mind, my heart, my spirit, my body, my breath, everything I know, all the sounds I’ve ever heard, all come into it. And the incredible thing is that it all happens right now, right here. And the challenge for all of us is to keep learning, to keep hearing better and better, finer and finer distinctions in tone quality or in text accentuation, or the purity of the vowel, or the kind of rhythm which calls forth a certain kind of dance, which indeed calls it into being. So we listen more and more.
When we have the chance to be at a weekend like this, concentrating on both hearing excellent groups sing, and talking about the things that go into making it possible, it is a marvelous opportunity. And it is capped off in a superb way by tonight’s concert, where we are all in communion with Bach, through Helmuth Rilling, and his lifetime of absorbing himself in that language. So we kind of take fire from this. We are part of that tradition. We all are part of what we have been taught by the many visionary teachers who have influenced us. But we are also that next generation that needs to hand it on. So be very aware that we are all, each one of us, a fulcrum between the past and the future, and the only time we have to express that is right now. So don’t hold back: express it, learn tonight, listen tonight, revel in being a human being that is part of the same race that can produce this music that gives to each of us this chance to drink at those springs of inspiration that keep us working and singing together."
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