CD REVIEW: OF THE VALLEY, Univ. of North Dakota

OF THE VALLEY

University of North Dakota Concert Choir
Dr. Joshua Bronfman, director

Doug Geston, recording engineer

CDs are available by calling the UND Bookstore at (866) 791-4888.

Track List

I am the Rose of  Sharon                  Ivo Antognini

The Spheres                                   Oal Gjeilo

Pater Noster                                   Vytausas Miskinis

Otche Nash                                    Nikolai Golovanov

Crucem Tuam Adormus, Domine          Pavel Lukaszewski

War Song                                       Shin-Ichiro Ikebe

Lux Aeterna                                    Brian Schmidt

Joshua Fir the Battle                         Edwin Fissinger

O Vos Omnes                                   Richard Burchard

Signs of the Judgment                       Mark Butler

This recent release by the UND Concert Choir under Joshua Bronfman includes music they presented in a highly successful concert at the North Central ACDA conference in Madison, WI about a year ago. I was present for that concert and was thrilled to hear this fine choir and watch Bronfman in action. I had never met him before or heard this choir, so when their program was so mind-blowing I became a big fan. I then did meet Josh there at Madison and we had a nice lunch together, at which time he was able to tell me more about the choir ( strong, highly skilled and balanced musical sections from bass on up through sopranos) and about the repertoire. I am glad that this CD documents their achievements for last school year, especially their presentation of the  striking, high-octane/high decibel War Song by Shin-Ichiro Ikebe (Japanese composer, b. 1943). War Song is the composer's version of a Maori folk song from the Cook Islands. The text is essentially about the warriors  driving the devil away. Ikebe's concert version of this song could be seen as similar to an arrangement of an African-American spiritual- ie., somewhat stylized for concert use. The piece is truly breathtaking in its energy and force, perhaps a cousin to Curse Upon Iron by the Estonian composer Veljo Tormis.

The University of North Dakota Concert Choir

Backtracking to the beginning of the CD, the first five tracks preceding the boldness of the War Song seem to create a set which explores the balance between vertical/horizontal  elements (roughly, vertical = harmony; horizontal = melodic line or lines) of contemporary choral music (well yes, Bruckner is not contemporary, but he actually sounds contemporary within this context). The more horizontal pieces in the early tracks are quite successful and not weak knockoffs of the reigning king of the horizontal approach to choral writing, namely Eric Whitacre. To me there seems to be a very interesting, gradual transition from track one through track five, as each new piece Bronfman has assembled begins to pay more attention to the horizontal world,  as is obvious when we arrive at the Bruckner. Josh may have not intended this quite so obviously as I am stating it, but it was interesting for this pair of ears to hear and notice. The singing on tracks one to five is impeccable, gorgeously tuned  and still robust- Bronfman does not fall into the trap of creating wisps of unsupported sound that some other directors do when singing some of these vertical clouds of music. By the way, the title of the CD comes from a phrase in the text of track one:

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valley;

The Fissinger Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho is familiar to all choral folks, and the choir does a great job with this, adding a few touches of their own and keeping it fresh. I am glad to see Bronfman placing a spiritual on the CD- spirituals seem to have fallen strongly out of favor in the university choral performance world.

Of these first five tracks I highly favor the Pater Noster by Vytautas Miskinis (Lithunian composer,
b. 1954), a marvel of odd ostinati and shifting worlds, and the Bruckner Os Justi. 

Two tracks don’t really do it for me (hey, I'm the choral composer blog guy- I get to freely express my opinions here). Brian Schmidt's Lux Aeterna seems too beholden to Morten Lauridsen- too many Lauridsen-like cliches or things verging on the cliche for my liking. Burchhard's O Vos Omnes is a pretty piece- but at over seven minutes I don't feel it has enough actual material ti support it that long. My opinions aside, they still are sung well and fit well into this CD.

In summation, the singing on this CD is highly musical and displays amazing attention to detail both by the singers and the director. Only rarely do you ever realize that this is an undergraduate college ensemble, not a professional choir. Bronfman's repertoire choices are intelligent, are within the scope of this choir's ability and strengths, and also, I am sure, pushed this choir to new levels. I highly recommend this CD to anyone wishing to hear some new and new-ish choral music sung very well. Bronfman is extremely talented and a young conductor you should watch for- I predict many new and wonderful achievements from him. I would also like to single out a remarkable sound engineering job by Doug Geston- bravo!

Dr. Joshua Bronfman is Associate Professor and Director of Choral Activities at the University of North Dakota, where he directs the UND Concert Choir, Chamber Choir, and Varsity Bards. He also teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in choral conducting, choral literature and choral methods. In addition to his duties at UND, he is the Artistic Director of the Grand Forks Master Chorale, a select chamber choir. In 2005 Joshua was selected as a Conducting Fellow for the Eric Ericson Masterclass in the Netherlands, where he directed the Netherlands Chamber Choir and Netherlands Radio Choir. He is an active clinician in the region, directing honor choir festivals at the middle, high school and collegiate levels. His published articles and presentations on choral music and choral music education have reached state, regional, and national audiences. In 2011-2012, Joshua led the UND Concert Choir in a performance at the North Central American Choral Directors Association Conference, sat on a panel on the teaching of undergraduate conducting at the National Collegiate Choral Association Conference, and judged the Oregon State Choir Competition.

Dr. Joshua Bronfman

Joshua studied conducting under noted conductors such as Anton Armstrong, Bruce Brown, Rodney Eichenberger, Simon Halsey, and André Thomas. Joshua received his Ph.D. in Choral Music Education and Choral Conducting at Florida State University. Joshua received his Master's degree from Oregon State University, and his Bachelor's degree from Florida State University.

2012 North Central ACDA Conference Highlights

A hugely successful 2012 North Central ACDA Conference just finished up in Madison, Wisconsin. We got lucky with the weather- Thursday was fine, Friday got really cold and super windy with a touch of snow, and Saturday was a bit warmer. We were certainly blessed by the fact that there wasn't a major blizzard, which meant that every choir was able to arrive, sing, and depart without being assailed by dangerous winter weather. And, by the way, all the conference venues were within about two blocks of each other- wow!

The conference revolved around the theme “Beyond the Notes” as devised by NC ACDA president Aimee Beckman-Collier and her able division co-workers. According to Aimee the conference would “center on ways to engage singers' imaginations; to develop artistry by connecting mind, body, and spirit...[one would not only] hear exhilarating performances-- but also learn from inspiring master clinicians...assisting members to lead their singers to heightened independence, artistry, and a broader contextual understanding of their music.” The conference delivered on all of this--bravo, Aimee and NC ACDA.

Thursday started off with a number of fine performances, included Karen Bruno leading the Lawrence Academy of Music Girl Choir in a drop-dead gorgeous Casals' “Nigra Sum” and other selections. Another highlight was a splendid Madison, WI community chorus, “Isthmus”, led by Scott MacPherson. In addition to selections by Gibbons and Bach, they sang Rudolf Mauersberger's “Wie legt die Stadt so wüsst”, which mourned the firebombing of the civilian inhabitants of Dresden, Germany in the later stages of WWII, an historical event I know well, as it is partly the subject of my own extended work for choir and string orchestra “1944” with text by Hilda Doolittle. The performance of this piece was truly powerful and the score should be studied by more directors (it's published by Verlag Merseburger). This was the first of two amazingly artistic performances by community choirs from NC ACDA. I was certainly highly impressed because our community choirs in Illinois are, sadly, nowhere close to this level of musicianship.

Also part of the morning session was a TOM Talk (Talks On Music- modeled after the TED talks) by ACDA executive director Tim Sharp which was highly entertaining. Tim talked about all the new variety of choirs out there- lawyers' choirs, military wives' choirs, “complaint” choirs, and even cannibal choirs (pass me that Memphis BBQ sauce please, Tim). Along with delivering this with his own special brand of droll delivery (and his newly acquired Elvis blazer) Tim also made sure to mention more socially dedicated choirs such as hospice choirs and prison choirs. Tim always has something new and unique for us to ponder. The TOM Talks, sprinkled throughout the three day conference, were quite exceptional. Veteran classroom music teacher Patricia Trump's talk on Friday was both rambunctiously humorous AND deep- she received a standing ovation for sharing her ideas with us.

I finished up my morning by attending a great interest session by Millikin University's Brad Holmes- his session was about ways to unleash greater potential in the choir. Brad spoke on a highly personal level about many things and had some great examples of how not overlooking a composer's intentions can really make great things happen. One of the best scores he showed us was a piece where the discovery of syncopations related to text underlay might be overlooked if you weren't paying close attention. As we sang this passage with Brad's insight totally changing the musical effect, the whole room had an a-ha moment. Brad was truly inspiring.

In the afternoon, The St John's Boys' Choir from Collegeville, MN led by Andre-Louis Heywood took the stage. This was a group I had no knowledge of previously since I am not in NC ACDA (I was a guest as I was presenting an interest session on Saturday). This group was great- though perhaps biting off something quite difficult in Mark Sirett's “Song of the Angels”- a lengthy a cappella piece whose tonal centers shifted often and in ways that were unexpected. I applaud them for tackling a challenging piece for a group this young. They went on to totally nail Stephen Hatfield's “Tjak!” which is a wild monkey chant. The boys were brilliant and so energetic on this piece-- the audience loved it so much! They then finished with another Hatfield wild and crazy piece, his “Überlebensgross”.

Following this performance was Joshua Bronfman's Concert Choir from the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks. Josh programmed a beautiful set which included Gjello's “The Spheres”, with the opening overlapping chords tuned impeccably. There was also an overwhelmingly visceral piece called “War Song” by Japanese composer Ichiro Ikebe, based on sounds from war chants of the Cook Islands. This piece required great energy and concentration from the singers-- there were periods where non-pitched chanting and even shouting had to jump back into pitched sections- the choir's ability to return accurately to pitched sections was truly impressive. This quite varied program was sung in a highly artistic manner, utilizing a number of very appropriate tone shadings (quite interesting since a much more well known university choir had, earlier in the day, sung their whole program in a one-size-fits-all tone color). Josh, who earned his DMA under Andre Thomas at FSU, is a young conductor we'll be keeping our eyes on. He was also a great panel discussion member at the November NCCO conference I attended in Ft Collins, CO.

The evening concert was shared by two groups, the Czech Boys Choir, led by Jakub Martinec, and the Kansas City Chorale.

The Czech Boys' Choir is an SATB group of boys/men from ages 10 to 22. Their sound was fresh, free, boisterous at times, and wholly a species unto itself. They breezed through standard Czech choral pieces by the major composers such as Smetana, Janacek, Martinu, and Dvorak. They then trotted around the globe singing folk songs from many countries with a youthful energy which delighted the audience. About every 2-3 songs throughout the evening, two singers would step to the mike and introduce the next few selections. One boy was about fifteen and the other about ten. The younger one was a natural comedian- he had the entire audience in stitches with his deadpan delivery of some very droll comic patter about the music. This kid could do comedy club standup right now, he was so funny! They finished their evening with America the Beautiful and the house went up for grabs. This was a spectacular performance- everyone was so glad we got a chance to hear this amazing choir. Their pianist, Martin Fišl, has serious chops- he sounded like Franz Liszt on some of the wild, fistful of notes piano parts some of the arrangements had-- yet he never overshadowed the boys.

(The Czech Boys' Choir having fun in the USA)

With this stellar performance, as well as the St. Johns Boy Choir performance earlier in the day, one of the themes which evolved throughout the day was that boys and young men cannot just sing, but that they can sing up a storm of major proportions - and it's time we all kept remembering to pitch in and keep working toward the boys/men singing renaissance that is starting to turn the tide in this country, which has been in danger of completely losing mens' interest in singing or any other arts activity permanently in favor of sports, beer, and more sports and more beer. Let's all realize that there may be really nothing MORE manly than a man singing out his heart and soul. It's far more pure, strong, and brave (and yet a bit personally vulnerable, which actually requires inner strength) than putting on a jockstrap, helmet, and pads and bashing other people around, or drinking beer after beer on the couch. Agreed??

The Kansas City Chorale was the second major headliner for the evening. While the programming, "Chant and Beyond", seemed to have potential, the interpretation was uninspired, or more accurately, missing in action, and the singing never soared. No program notes or translations of texts were supplied, so some of these Latin texts might have been difficult to connect for some of the audience. This, to my knowledge, is not repertoire that Charles Bruffy does often, and it showed. On piece after piece, contrapuntal voices were treated as constantly gray equals, meaning that no line ever came alive or truly engaged other lines in dialogue. It was as if all color, dimension, and life had been stripped from the counterpoint of great works by Dufay, Tallis, Morales, and others. There was no effort to tailor the sound to any composer's world- shouldn't the Spaniard Morales sound at least a bit different than Tallis? Music such as this comes alive in the hands of Harry Cristophers' "The Sixteen" and other groups (for the most part European groups), while here all we had to listen to was professional singers do what they do- which was read notes off the page. There was no real direction or artistic interpretation from Bruffy, whose gestures seemed listless. One could even venture that the singers without Bruffy would have actually done more with this music, as they would have perhaps freely started to allow their lines to interact and engage in real dialogue. But then again, at times it felt as if the singers, most of the evening with scores in hand, very little memorized, did not know some of the pieces well enough to be singing them to this caliber of audience.

Pieces were linked by a rather annoying new-agey chime tone piped in through speakers and the singers occasionally moved about the stage in a very pale imitation of Anuna. The stage movement seemed stillborn- it was used for awhile, then abandoned, then picked back up-- as if a project or vision for this program had been started but never really finished and brought to fruition. Thus in many senses this program, both musically and in its presentation values, seemed like it needed another six months of rehearsal and development to really work.

Many selections suffered from lack of rhythmic integrity--for instance, the Durufle Quatre Motets, a bit of a cliche to sing in front of this audience, were very sloppy and were only saved a bit by the women in the Tota Pulchra es. Sorry to say, but the only piece on the program which seemed unified in approach and where the singing came to life was the final number, Jackson Berkey's "Ascendit Deus".

The opinions expressed here in this blog were also voiced by many others I talked to later that night and the next day. We were very disappointed by KC Chorale's performance. I hope that they will consider further development of this program and also keep singing the music which shows off Charles' musical strengths and that they know the best- 2oth and 21st century American scores.

But all said and done, the day was spectacular.

NEXT POST: FRIDAY AT THE CONFERENCE

Interest Sessions (Thursday/Friday) at the 2011 NCCO Conference

Hi all!

Here is a recap ('twill be in two parts) of the many interest sessions at the 2011 NCCO conference in Ft. Collins, CO. There was a wide variety of events and many featured brilliant, famous folks like Alice Parker and Kirke Mechem, both octogenarians with lots of zip and lots to share!

THURSDAY

At 5:15 there was a panel discussion on conducting- specifically how do the panel members teach choral conducting to their students. The panelists were mostly from big schools with MM and DMA programs-- David Rayl (Michigan State), Kevin Fenton (Florida State), Jill Burleson (Northern Colorado)-- but also Joshua Bronfman, who has a much smaller program at the University of North Dakota. Actually, Josh was really fun to listen to- he intimated what his goals were at a small school and how he went about achieving them- all delivered with great humor. Meeting him later and getting to chat was great fun for me. All the panelists had great ideas to share- Jill stressed student responsibility and reminded us that having singers work in quartets is a great idea. She also had other great insights on how to keep students progressing well.

There were also a great quote from David Rayl when he was asked by moderator Charlene Archibeuque what he wished students would bring with them when they (as grad students at MSU) start working closely with him on their advanced degrees:

"I wish students had more vivid imaginations and bolder ideas and had the ability to make more choices-- and feel free enough to make those decisions." Bronfman added "I wish they would listen more."



(Joshua Bronfman)

The panelists all agreed that they loved teaching choral conducting and also stressed the importance of one on one lessons in addition to choral conducting class. Overall this session was filled with interesting personal insights and plenty of humor as well.

FRIDAY

There were early morning sessions by the following people (contact them for more info):

Andrew Crow: Music and Architecture and a Bruckner Case Study

Seth Houstion: The Shape-Note Tradition: New Resources

Nicole Lamartine: Choral Resonance: A Singer's Constructive Resonance through Standing Arrangement or Active Listening

(hmm, there's that "listening" thing again!)

James Niblock: Spectral Analysis in Collegiate Choral Training

Albert Pinsonneault: Choral Intonation Exercises

Andrea Solya: Thymiaterium Musical by Andreas Rauch

10 AM brought us an open rehearsal of James Kim's Colorado State Chamber Choir led by guest Helmuth Rilling as they worked in very dedicated manner on their all-Bach program. Mr. Rilling was miked so that he could alternate between speaking to the musicians and speaking more directly to us about his ideas and rehearsal techniques. I mentioned most of this in an earlier post.

11:15 AM brought another session with the very talented Nicole Lamartine-she presented recordings and her own University of Wyoming Chorale in a sampler of choral music by Jennifer Higdon- an interesting subject. Known as an award-winning orchestral composer, Higdon's choral music is far less sophisticated and at times somewhat odd, which even Nicole admitted. Higdon's choral writing still needs work in the craftsmanship area (tessitura and knowledge of passagio issues, text underlay issues, etc) and perhaps even could use better texts- but one has to respect that, with encouragement from people like Nicole, a person with such a high profile in the orchestral composing world has ventured into a totally new area. This issue came up later, on Saturday- the idea of conductors encouraging fine composers who might not have a lot of choral crafting experience (plus also young, generally inexperienced composers) to still go ahead and start writing for voices. Most of those in the audience were in favor of this.

4 PM brought an interest session on current Israel Choral Music from Eric Johnson and Orna Arania from Northern Illinois University . Eric has been doing good work in finding interesting ethnic music to explore. He has some other upcoming things worthy of our attention.

NEXT BLOG: Saturday interest sessions