Saint Mary's College Choir Spring Tour- Don't Miss it!

For those of you who live in Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida, I hope you will try to attend a concert by the St. Mary's College Women's Choir on tour March 8^th through 15th, plus a St. Mary's Homecoming concert on March 22^nd. The choir is led by Dr. Nancy Menk, one of the great conductors in the country and especially a leader in women's choral music for the last 25 years.

Dr. Nancy Menk

Their concert dates/locations and their wonderfully varied program are listed below. The program  includes my setting of Shakespeare's Full Fathom Five from The Tempest, which was commissioned recently by the American Choral Director's Association (ACDA) women's choir national commissioning consortium of 32 choirs across the country. I’m also pleased to add that their concert on March 15^th will be in collaboration with The Girl Choir of South Florida directed by Wallis Peterson, a group which has also been championing my music lately. In fact, they will actually be singing Full Fathom Five together with the Saint Mary's choir.

 St. Roch Catholic Church
3603 South Meridian Street
Indianapolis, Indiana
with the Roncalli High School Choir,
Joey Newton, conductor
Friday, March 8, 7:30 p.m.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
Catholic Church
10655 Haverstick Road
Carmel, Indiana
with the Guerin High School Choir,
Mark Duray, conductor
Saturday, March 9, 7:30 p.m.

Church of the Holy Spirit
3345 Lexington Road
Louisville, Kentucky
with the Presentation Academy Choir,
Catherine Smith, conductor
Sunday, March 10, 5:00 p.m.

Pope John Paul II High School
117 Caldwell Drive
Hendersonville, Tennessee
Tuesday, March 12, 8:00 a.m.
Concert for Students

Covenant Presbyterian Church
2461 Peachtree Road NE
Atlanta, Georgia
with the Gwinnett Young Singers,
Lynn Duke Urda, conductor
Tuesday, March 12, 8:00 p.m.

Marist School (Concert for students)
3790 Ashford Dunwoody Road NE
Atlanta, Georgia
Wednesday, March 13, 10:30 a.m.

First Presbyterian Church
of Pompano Beach
“The Pink Church”
2331 Northeast 26th Avenue
Pompano Beach, Florida
with the Girl Choir of South Florida,
Wallis Peterson, conductor
Friday, March 15, 8:00 p.m.

Homecoming Concert
Church of Our Lady of Loretto,
Saint Mary’s College
Friday, March 22, 7:30 p.m.

Saint Mary’s College Women’s Choir

2013 Spring Tour

PROGRAM

Cantate Domino……………………   Guy Forbes

Lux Aeterna………………………… Jake Runestad

Magnificat…………………………… A. Herbert Brewer, arr. Stroope

Ave Maris Stella………………………Eva Ugalde

Ave Maria……………………………  Franz Biebl

O Salutaris Hostia……………………Ēriks Ešenvalds

Tres Canciónes………………………Stephen Paulus

INTERMISSION

How Can I Keep from Singing?..............arr. Gwyneth Walker

Full Fathom Five………………………Paul Carey

Carmen fratrum Arvalium……………Hildigunnar Rúnarsdóttir

Kashiri…………………………………Tae Kyun Ham

Earth Chant……………………………arr. Sheena Phillips

Deep River……………………………arr. Alex Blake

My God Is a Rock (In a Weary Land)… arr. Daniel Kallman

Irish Blessing……………………………arr. Graeme Langager

The Bells of Saint Mary’s………………A. Emmet Adams

Plus Selections by Bellacappella

St. Mary's College Choir concert directed by Nancy Menk

One of my biggest supporters has always been Dr. Nancy Menk, director of choral organizations at the famous St. Mary's College in South Bend, Indiana. Nancy has commissioned works from me both for her college choir and her mixed choir, the South Bend Chamber Singers. I have always been a great admirer of her musical wisdom, and her amazing dedication to her craft and to the people she leads.

Recently the St. Mary's College Women's Choir went on a tour of China. This wasn't your usual tour- Nancy did the research and work to make it special. They traveled to Nanjing and did collaborative work with the Nanjing University women's choir there. They rehearsed together, presented concerts together, and shared world views with each other. You can read the blog the students wrote about this experience by clicking here. It's fun reading.



Wow- now that's a curtain call glow. Nancy is there holding the big bouquet of flowers


When the tour came to an end they gave a homecoming concert back at St. Mary's. Nancy worried that the choir would be jet lagged but I told her, I'm sure the adrenaline of a performance will see them through.

So Aidan (my fun-loving seven year old) and I took a mini road trip to Indiana. Aidan is all about road trips, even choir concert road trips with Dad, which you can read about (it is hilarious) here. I had two motivations for going- the first was the fact that the choir had taken my piece "Winter Solstice" for SSA/harp or piano, published by Roger Dean, on tour to China with them and they had added a solo dancer to the performance. I was quite intrigued by this presentation idea, and I was really looking forward to getting a chance to see this performance live. The second motivation was the fact that my new arrangement of the school song,"The Bells of St. Marys" (yes, that song, which you may know through the old Bing Crosby movie) would be performed at the end of the concert and I had yet to hear the new arrangement. In regard to this, I was very honored that Nancy entrusted me to write this piece. She wanted a new arrangement with piano, as they already had an a cappella version they had been doing for years. I felt this was a big task-- I needed to get this arrangement just right to do a famous school song honor. So I was looking forward, with crossed fingers, to finally hearing this sung by real people, not just as a Finale file playback.

So Aidan and I got to St. Mary's in plenty of time and we settled into our seats in the beautiful Loretto Chapel. Nancy and the singers entered and were greeted by very enthusiastic applause- it was obvious that the folks of St. Mary's were proud of them and glad to welcome them back.

The concert wound through some very nice repertoire by mostly living composers, including a very interesting Missa Brevis by Anna Cederberg, a Lux Aeterna by Michelle Roueche, and pieces by Ola Gjeillo and David Brunner. The Cederberg seemed to be the most interesting-- I sensed a nicely original "voice" and I would like to delve into this piece some more.

Then, after three very fresh and delightful Chinese folk songs the choir arrived at Winter Solstice. I settled into my seat just feeling very happy and curious about what would happen. The solo dancer, Jinqui Guan, a St. Mary's senior who is from China and will attend grad school at Harvard in the fall, took her place. The music started and the dancing was so beautiful and natural. Everything she did fit the poetry and my music so magically, that I found myself paying so much attention to the dancing that I was almost ignoring the music. But when I did refocus on the singing what I noticed was the most amazing phrase arc/line- Nancy and the choir had sung this piece enough times that they knew exactly how to nuance every phrase to its maximum expressiveness. I was just so happy to hear a piece of mine sung so artistically and in such a manner as to reflect, through beautiful phrasing, the beauty of the Southwest U.S. nature/winter solstice texts. I was moved deeply by the performance and even Aidan seemed really drawn in (you can't expect a seven year old to totally get all these things of course- he is pretty artistic but he's also about Pokemon and Yu-gi-o card games too).

The concert then finished up and I just had to thank everyone involved. I told Nancy that I thought it was the best St. Marys College Choir concert I had ever heard. I profusely thanked Miss Guan (it turns out she has training in traditional Chines dance, as well a ballet and modern), and also their amazing new pianist Allison Secaur. Allison rocked the entire night- whether it was subtlely nuanced music like Winter Solstice or great gobs of notes like in Stephen Paulus' "I cannot Dance, O Lord", which was also on the program. I hope Nancy can keep Allison in this position for a long time, she is one of the finest choral accompanists I have ever heard.

The singers were all happy-- I know they were tired but it was obvious that they were so proud of what they had accomplished in their travels to China and proud of their homecoming concert at St. Mary's. I was also really pleased that the dean and the president of the school were there wearing proud smiles and came and chatted with me. It's so wonderful to see their support of what Nancy has been doing at St. Mary's for the last twenty-six years. And I as well am proud to call Nancy a good friend and very proud of how she has shaped so many of the lives of her students. She has also been a true leader in the advance of women's choral music in the US over the last twenty-five years. She's been there from the start when this movement to elevate women's choral music to a high level of artistry began. And, as a composer, I truly appreciate how she and others like her have encouraged gifted composers to set quality poetry for this voicing.

Here is a video an audience member posted to youtube of the Winter Solstice performance- yes, I know a gentleman's head is partly in the frame! I believe the college will have an official video out soon.



Thanks for reading,

Paul

PS The "Bells of St. Mary's" arrangement was sung beautifully as well. Aaron Copland let me borrow a few very American harmonic ideas (think "Our Town") that help express emotions of love, fellowship and reminiscence. I am very happy with what I wrote for them- something that hopefully will touch the hearts of singers and alums.

Sharing a student blog from St. Mary's College trip to China

Well the ACDA National Conference here in Chicago has just ended. It was an amazing experience and I will try to start blogging about it, plus blog about my experience teaching in Hong Kong the week previous to ACDA (wow, I am exhausted, but in a good way). There were so many fabulous new directions at ACDA, and one that really jumped out was the youth movement that was so obvious- but more on that later.

For those of you curious about a choir trip to China (or just looking for new ideas about planning international trips in general), Nancy Menk's St. Mary's College Women's Choir is in China right now, and Nancy and I discussed having the young women guest blog on my page. They've done far better- they have set up their own blog and they've been pretty busy on it. There's lots of good information and fun firsthand reflections there, so I encourage you to take a look at it. Right now I think they are just really getting into their singing,and one thing I think is truly great is that it is an exchange program with a Chinese women's choir. So these two choirs are singing for each other, trading ideas, and so on, This is so valuable and way better than just having ABC or XYZ tour company set up the usual rather random concert opportunities that you usually see. These young women are going to make lifelong friends with women their age who live across the globe. I'm also thrilled that they are doing my piece Winter Solstice and have added a solo dancer to the piece- I really want to see/hear this version!

I will repost the link every few days for those who may have forgotten to take a look right away, and it will be fun for us all to see the blogposts evolve over the next week.

Thanks,

Paul

26th Annual High School Women's Choir Festival soon!

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Dr. Nancy Menk (in white coat)

For anyone with a HS women's choir in the Indiana/Michigan/northern Illinois area, you should be attending the St. Mary's College annual festival, founded by Dr. Nancy Menk. I was one of the clinicians last year and it was a great event. Here's some quick background on last year, the plans for this year, and as a bonus-- how Dr. Menk kept busy, busy, busy last season!


26th Annual High School Women's Choir Festival coming up soon!

Last fall, the 25th annual High School Women's Choir Festival was held November 19 and 20, with 20 choirs from 4 states participating. In celebration of the 25^th anniversary of the festival, all participants premiered a new work by Canadian composer Eleanor Daley, commissioned especially for the occasion. “How the Flowers Came,” for SSAA and piano, is published by Alliance Music. Daley rehearsed the massed choir on her new work, and also served as a commentator along with composer-conductors Paul Carey and Lee Kesselman.

This year’s festival will be held on November 18^th and 19^th, 2010 with commentators Paul, Caldwell, Sean Ivory, and Barbara Tagg.

What my friend Dr. Nancy Menk was up to last year- whew, busy, busy!

Dr. Nancy Menk, Mary Lou and Judd Leighton Chair in Music, conducted the 120-voice Northwest Indiana Symphony Chorus and members of the orchestra in 2 performances of Handel’s Messiah this season. She also prepared the Chorus for the Holiday Pops concert, a concert version of Puccini’s Turandot with DuPage Opera, Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man, and a concert of the music of Cole Porter.

Menk led the South Bend Chamber Singers in their 21^st season of concerts as an ensemble-in-residence at Saint Mary’s College. You may read more about the SBCS in this edition of Overtones.

On Valentine’s Day, Dr. Menk conducted over 175 singers and orchestra in a sold-out performance of Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna at Carnegie Hall. Members of the Saint Mary’s College Women’s Choir, the South Bend Chamber Singers, and the Northwest Indiana Symphony Chorus participated, along with the LaPorte High School Treble and Mixed Chorales (Tom Coe, director), the Northwood High School Choir (Jeff Cramer, director), and the El Segundo High School Choir from California.

In October, Menk gave a talk to the Michiana Music Teachers Association on working with an accompanist. Menk attended the American Choral Directors Association Central Division conference in Cincinnati in February. She conducted a reading session on medium-advanced repertoire for women’s choirs. In the spring semester she served as choral clinician at Culver Academy and LaPorte High School, and she served as an adjudicator for the Michigan School Vocal Music Association’s state choral contest at Holt, MI.

25th Anniversary St. Mary's Women's Choir Festival

This past summer my good friend Dr. Nancy Menk of St. Mary's College in South Bend, IN asked me to be one of the judges for the 25th anniversary of the high school women's choir festival she hosts every year. This was a big honor, and Nancy also decided to make it a three way composer/conductor panel of judges, so I was joined by Lee Kesselman and also Eleanor Daley from Toronto. Nancy also changed the event into a two day festival and commissioned Eleanor to write a piece for the groups to sing en masse. It sounded like a great way to celebrate this impressive 25 year milestone.

I arrived Wednesday night early enough to work with the St. Mary's College women's choir (well, actually this is a women's college, so all the choir's are women's choirs) on my new arrangement of A City Called Heaven (recently released by Roger Dean). The young women were doing a great job, so I simply asked them to look more deeply into their souls and to reflect on the origins of this very intensely personal African-American spiritual in order to really convey the hurt and hope that it holds in a dual manner. Their facile young minds seemed to wrap around these ideas very nicely and I not only heard greater expression that night, but also continued exploration and highly expressive singing when they sang the song two days in a row during their performances for the high school choirs. Nancy and I then picked up Eleanor at the airport and had a fun, casual dinner at a local eatery. We had never met Eleanor before, and were delighted to discover that she is lots of fun and a real mensch!

Thursday morning- up bright and early and hearing choirs by 9 AM. Some really great groups and Lee, Eleanor, and I seemed to be in a good groove. The way Nancy works this is as follows- a group comes onstage, sings 2-3 selections, and then one of the judges works with them live while the other two judges make written comments. The judges rotate and Nancy worked it out so that if a choir were singing a piece by one of us in particular, then that composer would work with that choir.

Each judge had a different style of course, but I think we complemented each other nicely. Eleanor was very much into meaning of text and beauty of sounds and vowels. She also worked a lot on creating naturally flowing expressive lines. Lee was very good at finding what a choir did well and then build more successes on top of that. I was spending much of my time working with choirs to be more expressive and joyous musically and with their stage presentation, though that was not my only interest. I also worked with a few choirs using non-traditional rehearsal techniques, working on choir members taking more responsibility and ownership of their groups, and also working on color (more on that later).




Eleanor Daley


At lunch both days we shared our mealtime with the directors, which was fun, and on Thursday night Nancy took us to her favorite upscale restaurant. Lee was very adept at picking out an excellent wine!

I think that all of the choirs did a wonderful job and I applaud the directors for attending this event, which provides a wonderful opportunity not only to perform and get professional feedback, but also the opportunity for all the young singers to be out in the auditorium listening to each other sing.

A number of groups deserve special attention. On Thursday, the standout choirs in my mind were the Neuqua Valley HS Chamber Singers, led by Anne Kasprczak. The group was topnotch in everything they did and it is obvious Anne knows how to teach, motivate, and lead some very strong, enthusiastic young singers. Another standout choir from Thursday was from Toledo (OH) Christian HS, led by Dennis Johns. Their highly expressive performance of Eleanor's "Child with the Starry Crsyon" took HER breath away, and the underlying love of music taught in this program was obvious to all.

On Friday, despite their youth (just freshmen and sophomores) the choir from Glenbard West HS (Glen Ellyn, IL) directed by Andy Jeffrey was a joy to listen to and a joy to work with- as I know because I got to do their clinic. We had so much fun experimenting with tone color just by talking about tone in actual colors of the spectrum and just playing with paletes and smiling and laughing- what a great bunch of young singers who were never shy about speaking up or trying new ideas!

Probably the most amazing discovery of the event was the Friday performance by the ensemble from Portage Central HS (MI) directed by Cindy Hunter. All three of us judging were blown away by their presentation, enthusiasm, vocal abilities, repertoire and sheer joy. They seemed to have the stage presence and singing ability of a quality college choir and it was so amazing and wonderful to get to hear them. At lunch we then found this out- the group used to be a regular classroom choir for credit course, but because of district "budget" reasons, the womens choir had been axed recently. The director told the young ladies and they chose to rehearse once a week after school for seven weeks and still attend the festival. When we heard this we were even more blown away, their performance sounded like a choir that rehearsed multiple times per week, without a doubt. I even went out and found the young ladies in the lunchroom to let them know how blown way all three of the judges were- I felt they deserved as much praise as possible for all their hard work, as it was obvious that they had all worked very hard on this music at home or in a practice room on their own time.

The other big highlight to the festival was the premiere performance of the piece Nancy commissioned from Eleanor especially for the festival. Each day, Nancy's college choir sang through it once so the HS kids could hear it sung well, and then Eleanor worked through the piece with all the choirs massed in the auditorium. Eleanor did a beautiful job teaching them the piece, and telling them her motivations in how she set the text. And then the massed choirs did a final "performance" of the piece for themselves. Lots of smiles all around. These kids got to sing a new piece written especially for them, coached by the composer, and surrounded by hundreds of peers. What a great experience!

So congratulations, dear Nancy Menk- you have been an amazing, inspiring musical leader and mentor to so many people of all ages, and you've certainly left your mark on the choral world- with still plenty more to come I am sure!




(Nancy and myself with Gwyenth Walker, from a few years ago)