There is little doubt that the advance of technology, international communications, and access to educational opportunity has changed the complexion of musical composition during the 21st Century. There is much beautiful music being written these days. Maybe too much. And boundaries, styles and trends have been blurred more than ever before. None of this is surprising, given our 21st Century world, and it will be interesting to see what the world's 22nd Century population surmises as they reflect on the current musical landscape. As an Englishman, born in the late 1960s, my first exposure to American Choral Music was, predictably enough, hearing Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms performed at London’s Royal Festival Hall in 1973. For the decade or so after that, I was basically unaware of American Choral Music, as I became steeped in the Anglican Choral Tradition.
THE BRAHMS REQUIEM AS CHAMBER MUSIC
BY NICHOLAS WHITE
The German Requiem (Ein Deutsches Requiem) by Johannes Brahms is one of the most important works this composer produced. The opening three movements were first performed in Vienna during December 1867, and movements 1-3, 6 and 7 were performed in Bremen on Good Friday 1868. The first performance of the entire work took place at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on February 18th, 1869. Since then, the German Requiem has been one of the most frequently performed of all works in the oratorio repertoire. The compilation of Biblical texts on which it is based, all chosen by the composer, reflects a “sense of religiosity common to all mankind,” characteristic of the spiritual thinking of the mid 19th century. Despite certain reminiscences of earlier settings of the Requiem, Brahms’s work was viewed from the outset – quite correctly – as being entirely novel in both conception and execution.
Although the Requiem is usually performed with full orchestra, Brahms also arranged the piece for four-hand piano accompaniment. The piano version of the piece was first performed at the home of Sir Henry Livingston in 1871. On April 11th, The Boston Cecilia will present this more intimate arrangement of the Requiem.
In 1868, before the first performance of the complete work, the full score, orchestral and choral parts, and the vocal score (with the complete voice parts and piano solo reduction of the accompaniment by the composer himself) were issued by the publisher Rieter-Biedermann. This publishing house, founded in 1849, had a close association with Brahms during the 1860s and early 1870s. The musical material of the German Requiem printed by Rieter-Biedermann was augmented by the composer’s piano duet arrangement. The piano version of the German Requiem represents more than a mere arrangement of the orchestral parts for piano duet. It is a reworking of the entire score, including the vocal parts, to form an autonomous keyboard composition; this sets the accompaniment for our concert apart from a normal piano reduction intended for rehearsal purposes. In his quest for a piano duet texture which sounds well and is wholly pianistic in character, the composer proceeded in a manner which approaches creative reworking and fresh shaping of existing musical material. This applies, for example, to the many doublings by which particular melodies are brought out. In our performance, in order to preserve the luminous, transparent nature of certain solo and choral lines which would not be doubled in the orchestral version, we have made judicious cuts to the piano duet accompaniment, thereby leaving the chorus or the soloists undoubled by the piano.
By making this arrangement of the German Requiem for piano duet, Brahms was following a practice which was widely current during the 19th and early 20th centuries, of publishing symphonic works in transcriptions of this kind. Before the existence of recordings, arrangements such as this offered the public the best opportunity to become familiar with the composition in its entirety. Undoubtedly piano duet arrangements of this kind also represent a particular and once-popular class of publication for domestic music-making.
A presentation of Brahms’s well-loved masterwork in a form that is less familiar to the ear, like this one with an alternative form of accompaniment, gives us a unique opportunity as performers. In effect, as a chorus, we are able to approach the voice parts with a new perspective. Performing the piece then takes on a feeling of chamber music: a more direct, and in some cases more subtle, form of musical communication. There is a re-imagined clarity to the choral writing which, in combination with a truly pianistic accompaniment, presents the piece to the listener in a whole new way. Brahms’s masterpiece remains intact. The communication of it becomes fresh and newly invigorated.
Adapted, with additions, from Wolfgang Hochstein’s 1989 foreword to the Carus Edition.
Note: Paul Max Tipton, the baritone soloist for Cecilia’s April 11th performance, recently recorded this piano version of the Requiem for Seraphic Fire. (Listen - Clip 1) (Listen - Clip 2)
SIR JOHN TAVENER (1944-2013)
BY DEBORAH GREENMAN
When Sir John Tavener died almost exactly a year ago in November of 2013, the London Evening Standard headline read, “John Tavener: Farewell to Classical Music’s Cult Hero.” Probably the only classical composer to have been promoted by the Beatles, he was indeed both a brilliant classical composer and something of a cult hero. Ringo Starr and John Lennon were impressed by his cantata The Whale, and in 1970 it was released on their Apple label. The cantata’s text is the story of Jonah and includes instructions for snorting and yawning sounds by the chorus, to create the effect of whale sounds. Tavener achieved fame, fortune and a connection to the British royal family when his Song for Athene, a song composed after the death of a young Greek girl who was a family friend, was played at the funeral of Princess Diana. He was made a knight in 2000 just a few years later. His work ranged ever more widely. He composed Veil of the Temple in 2003 as an all night vigil. It was scored for four choirs, several orchestras and soloists, and lasted seven full hours. His Prayer of the Heart was written and performed for pop performer Björk, and in 2007, he wrote a piece called The Beautiful Names, the text of which is the 99 names of God in the Muslim tradition.
The composer had been captivated by music from the age of three and eschewed formal theory teaching for improvisation. Tavener was a man of contrasts, simultaneously fascinated with the intensity and asceticism of the Russian and Greek Orthodox traditions, yet flamboyantly dressed and delighting in good food and fast cars. A journalist once described him as “a mystic who drives a Rolls Royce.” Devoted – and even perhaps disturbingly attached – to his charismatic mother, he was not able to sustain a relationship with a woman and have a family until after his mother died when he was close to 50 years old. His most important collaborator was a mother figure, a Russian Orthodox nun named Mother Thekla. From the 1980s on, she either wrote or adapted nearly all of his texts until late in his life when – almost certainly as the result of tension between his wife Maryanna and Mother Thekla – he broke off their partnership.
John Tavener was surrounded by music as a child. Although his grandfather had a building business which his father later ran, father, grandfather, and many other family members played musical instruments. Tavener had perfect pitch and began improvising when he was three years old. In his book The Music of Silence A Composer’s Testament, a series of reflections and responses to interviews by his friend and editor Brian Keeble, Tavener wrote:
“But by far the most powerful musical experience I had at this time was hearing Stravinsky’s Canticum Sacrum. I heard the first broadcast performance from St Mark’s, Venice, when I was twelve years old. That completely overwhelmed me and made me really want to compose. For two or three years after it, I was imitating the sounds I’d heard.”
Perhaps beginning with Stravinsky and then enhanced by his relationship with Mother Thekla, Tavener would become more and more at home in the Russian Orthodox Church. His compositions are striking for their focus on text. He has a message, a spiritual message, to impart. He felt at home in the Orthodox Church because it was about immersion in the spiritual rather than an intellectual analysis of it. In his postlude to Tavener’s book, Keeble wrote, “Tavener’s belief that music is a way to ultimate truths capable of being integrated into life’s every moment necessarily hangs upon a religious and metaphysical vision of reality.”
In later life, Tavener was increasingly interested in Eastern religions and their unique tones. For some time, he had had little patience for music without a message, “frivolous music without the purpose of spiritual enrichment.” Tavener appreciated the way that music was woven into the fabric of both spiritual and everyday life in eastern culture. In an interview with the New York Times in 2000, Tavener said, “I listened to Indian music, Persian music, all music from the Middle East. I listened to American Indian music. I listened to any music that was based on traditional ideas. That’s when I started to question what on earth happened to this Western civilization and why the sacred seems to have been pushed out gradually by the domination of the ego.”
However, while recovering from cardiac surgery in 1991, Tavener listened again to Beethoven’s Late Quartets, and he began to return to the work of other modern composers as well. Although in his book, Tavener does not dwell on the impact of his medical problems on his spiritual life, it is hard not to see it as significant. He knew that he and his brother likely had Marfan’s syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that caused both his long-limbed body type and heart abnormalities. He had a stroke in 1980 when he was only 36 years old, and while recuperating read the introduction to The Life of St Mary by Mother Thekla that began his long and fruitful collaboration with her. About ten years after the stroke, he had cardiac surgery. He told Ivan Hewett, a reporter for the Telegraph in what would become his last interview, “my consultant keeps telling me sudden death could come at any moment.”
In The Music of Silence, Keeble asks Tavener what “state of being and what expectations would you like listeners to bring to a performance of your music?” Tavener replies, “First of all, I do not say ‘Do this, do that, Listen to this, Look out for that.’ That is the way of Western classical music. Rather I would say: here is something that is before all ages coming to birth – something new – something already known. But it is not what I have done that is important, rather the spirit that has animated it. Close the mind and open the heart. Expect nothing and you may receive ‘something.’”
Opening the heart seems an apt description of the way one might receive a performance of his song “The Lamb.” Tavener composed this utterly simple song in one day in 1982 for his then three-year-old nephew Simon. In The Music of Silence, Tavener writes “The Lamb’ came to me spontaneously and complete. I read Blake’s poem ‘The Lamb’ from the Songs of Innocence and as soon as I read it, the music was there…. Also, symbolism in the use of chords appears in The Lamb – there’s a joy/sorrow chord in it (Tavener refers here to the chord A-C-G-B) , on the word ‘lamb’ , which I was to use many times later.” For Cecilia’s Music Director, Nicholas White, hearing the second ever performance of this piece at age 15 was compelling: he was hearing something “radically different from any other carol” he’d heard before.
At our Christmas concerts on December 5th and December 7th, The Boston Cecilia will
perform “The Lamb” as well as a less-known set of pieces, Ex Maria Virgine. This latter cycle sets texts united by their focus on the person of Mary, Mother of God. It was commissioned by the Clare College Choir, completed on Christmas Day 2005, and “dedicated to HRH, The Prince of Wales and HRH The Duchess of Cornwall in joyful celebration of their marriage.”
It is hard to consider the constant refrain of homage to the mother Mary without thinking of Tavener’s powerful attachment to his own mother and his sense that she was crucial to his development as a composer. Tavener wrote about his piece: “I have set both familiar and less well known elements and linked them with an expanding and contracting phrase Ex Maria Virgine. This refers to Mary, Mother of God, and should be sung with great radiance and femininity.” The cycle uses the words of conventional English carols like “Ding! Dong! merrily on high” and texts from Greek and Islamic sources in a piece that challenges the listener. There is at once a sense of disconnection; is this medieval England or ancient Byzantium? Is that Latin or Aramaic? and then unity. Somehow the dissonant and melodic sections, the different languages, the angry words about the “The Empress of Hell” and the “lulla lulla” of the lullaby to rock the infant Jesu, all come together, united by the repetition at the end of each of the ten sections with the “expanding and contracting” phrase Ex Maria Virgine.
Perhaps in the later years of his life, some of the conflicts within this compelling, and passionate composer were also coming together. He had held onto his early fascination with Russian tradition, explored eastern religious and mystical tradition, focused on sacred texts and eschewed much of modern music, but he returned to Beethoven, Handel and others, and in his very last years set sonnets of Shakespeare to music. His funeral was in the Anglican Cathedral of Winchester but presided over by a senior Orthodox bishop.
On December 5th and December 7th, The Boston Cecilia will excitedly undertake the complexity of the brilliant and enigmatic John Tavener as we celebrate both his legacy and the Christmas season.
SWEET WAS THE SONG: MUSIC FOR CHRISTMAS
BY NICHOLAS WHITE
In 1982, when I was 15 years old, I first heard The Lamb by John Tavener. This second-ever performance of the carol was included in the Christmas Eve radio broadcast of Nine Lessons and Carols, live from King’s College, Cambridge. A much smaller audience had heard the very first performance of this newly-composed work at Winchester Cathedral two days earlier. I remember feeling that I had just experienced something radically different from any other carol I had heard before. The truth was that several million listeners across the world had just had the same experience, and the reputation of the composer, in the space of three minutes, had been propelled to a whole new level of renown. The music was stark, yet gentle; dissonant, yet comforting; simple, yet haunting. I think I made my decision shortly after that to pursue an organ scholarship at Cambridge University, which had me living, literally, in the shadow of King’s College Chapel for the three years of my undergraduate career. As it happens, I had followed in the footsteps of one of Tavener’s school friends and fellow composers, John Rutter, who had studied music at Clare College twenty years before me.
When John Tavener died, just a little over a year ago, I began thinking of how we might pay tribute to him with The Boston Cecilia. I had been aware of a series of commissions that Tavener had written around 2005, which resulted in a sequence of carols entitled Ex Maria Virgine. This sequence had been recorded by Tim Brown and the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge in 2008. As I listened to the recording, made in the grand surroundings of the Chapel of St. John’s College, Cambridge, I decided that it would provide the ideal challenge for The Boston Cecilia and a great way of celebrating the life of John Tavener at our December concerts. The luxurious acoustics of The Church of the Advent and All Saints, Brookline, along with their fine organs, would create an ideal vehicle for this eccentric music.
Also on my mind at this time was Richard Rodney Bennett, whose music had captured my interest at a very early age when I learned several of his compositions for piano. Later on in life, we ended up as neighbors on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and I was fortunate in getting to know Richard, talking about his film scores, and discussing choral music, occasionally over dinner at a local restaurant. In the year 2000 I had conducted the New York premiere of his large-scale work for choir and organ, The Glory and the Dream, and the organist for the performance was none other than Barbara Bruns, for whom Richard had the highest praise. Richard died on Christmas Eve of 2012. As I had long been familiar with his Christmas carols, I instantly thought that these would provide a perfect complement to Tavener’s works, so I went about assembling the program that will be performed by The Boston Cecilia on December 5th and 7th, 2014.
According to Tavener, The Lamb was written in an afternoon and is built on a simple melodic idea and its inversion. Tavener’s tempo direction for the piece is explicit and simple: “With extreme tenderness – flexible – always guided by the words.” For those of us who are devoted to the art of choral singing, there is surely no better way of conducting ourselves.
PREPARING FOR CHICHESTER PSALMS
BY CHARLIE EVETT
For a bass, the middle of the second movement of Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms stands out as one of the most “fun” passages in the choral literature. The tricky rhythms and Hebrew language are challenging enough to keep you on your toes, and the brisk tempo and dramatic dynamics are irresistible.
I first performed this in high school, and we drilled and drilled this section until it was completely burned into our subconscious, but I never had the slightest idea what the words meant. That didn’t stop us basses from saluting each other with a stout “V’roznim!” as we passed each other in the halls on the way to class.
Here is a bit of the Hebrew text:
Lamah rag'shu goyim
Ul'umim yeh'gu rik?
Yit'yats'vu malchei erets,
V'roznim nos'du yaḥad
Al Adonai v'al m'shiḥo.
Now I come to discover this is from Psalm 2, “Why do the Nations rage”. In his translation, Robert Alter presents this verse as:
“Why are the nations aroused,
and the peoples murmur vain things?
Kings of the earth take their stand,
and princes conspire together
against the Lord and His anointed.”
Of course this text is familiar to most of us from the bass aria in Handel’s Messiah. Here is a recording from Boston Cecilia’s one and only performance in 2000, with Mark Risinger as the bass soloist. We see again that when you’re a bass being angry can be an excuse to have a grand time.
Interestingly, this part of the Chichester Psalms springs from the original request to the composer. In early December 1963, Bernstein received a letter from the Very Reverend Walter Hussey, Dean of the Cathedral of Chichester in Sussex, England, requesting a piece for the Cathedral’s 1965 music festival:
“The Chichester Organist and Choirmaster, John Birch, and I, are very anxious to have written some piece of music which the combined choirs could sing at the Festival to be held in Chichester in August, 1965, and we wondered if you would be willing to write something for us. I do realize how enormously busy you are, but if you could manage to do this we should be tremendously honoured and grateful. The sort of thing that we had in mind was perhaps, say, a setting of the Psalm 2, or some part of it, either unaccompanied or accompanied by orchestra or organ, or both. I only mention this to give you some idea as to what was in our minds.”
He goes on to say, “Many of us would be very delighted if there was a hint of West Side Story about the music.” and indeed, the second movement has material taken from the Prologue of West Side Story.
This passage is just as evocative now as it was in 1965. When Chichester Psalms debuted at Lincoln Center on July 15th, “Operation Rolling Thunder” had been underway in Vietnam for 3 months — a “limited” bombing campaign against the communist controlled north. 60,000 American troops had been deployed to Vietnam and had begun “Search and Destroy” missions. Ho Chi Minh appeared on the cover of Time magazine the next day.
Bernstein was very active in social causes throughout his life. In March of 1965, he participated in a “Stars for Freedom” rally in Montgomery, Alabama to support the march from Selma led by Martin Luther King.
Importantly, in the Chichester Psalms, the raging of nations gives way to the overarching message of peace that begins and ends the second movement, albeit with some final murmurs of vain things. In the last movement, flowing melody and a hushed final unison beautifully express Bernstein's hopes for peace and unity through music.
WHO WAS CECILIA?
BY ELIZABETH RIELY
Sancta Caecilia I by Kendra O'Donnell, oil on paper, 2013.
Our chorus, growing out of its infancy in the Harvard Musical Association, became independent in 1876. Originally called The Cecilia, then The Cecilia Society, under Donald Teeters it became The Boston Cecilia. We all know that Cecilia is the patron saint of music. Who was she? Why are we named after her?
The earliest known account of Saint Cecilia is found in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, a list of martyrs traditionally attributed to Saint Jerome, dating from the late 6th century. In the early medieval period news traveled more slowly than today, and evidence was harder to verify. Both history and legend grew by accretion as generations handed down stories. Then as now, people filled the gaps with projections from their experience and imagination: maps with serpents and sea dragons in terra and aqua incognita and such. Sometimes misinformation became part of the canon.
In the modern era, Cecilia’s story has been said to have “no historical value,” “difficult to ascertain the factual nature of,” and even to be “a pious romance.” Lest we obscure her further, we should step back for a longer perspective on our own culture as well as hers. Narrative may be a better word for her story, as the record of her life and death is very old and unclear. What matters is what she means to us at any given time.
For us music lovers, the crux of Cecilia’s story is the antiphon of the Vespers on her Feast Day, November 22nd. The passage, describing her nuptials, goes thus: Cantantibus organis, Caecilia virgo in corde suo soli Domino cantebat dicens: “Fiat cor meum et corpus meus immaculatum ut non confonedar.” (“As instruments sang out, the virgin Caecilia sang in her heart to God alone, saying: ‘May my heart and my body be spotless, lest I be thrown into discord.’”) The second Latin word in this passage, organis, means musical instruments, but it has been misconstrued to mean organ, that is, pipe organ. This is the reason that Cecilia is so often depicted with her hands on the organ manual or keyboard.
Cecilia was born to a senatorial family in Rome, in the second or third century AD, a Christian from her birth in this period of political and religious turmoil. She was betrothed to Valerianus, also of a patrician family, but a pagan. After their marriage ceremony, when the bridal couple withdrew to the wedding chamber, Cecilia told her husband that she was promised to an angel who jealously guarded her virginity. Understandably, Valerianus asked to see the angel. Cecilia told him to go to the third milestone on the Via Appia, where he would meet the bishop, Pope Urbanus I. He did as she directed and found the pope who baptized him, then her groom returned to Cecilia. An angel is said to have appeared to the couple and crowned them with roses and lilies.
Valerianus and his brother Tiburtius, who also converted to Christianity, gave generously and performed good works, but were martyred by the Roman prefects. Cecilia had the brothers buried in a tomb, but shortly thereafter she too was imprisoned. For professing her faith, she was condemned to death by suffocation in her bath. After this attempt on her life failed, the prefect ordered her to be decapitated. Once, twice, thrice, goes the story, the sword of the executioner failed to cut off her head. He fled, leaving her bathed in her own blood. Three days later, after providing generously for the poor and arranging for her house to become a place of worship, she succumbed.
Pope Urbanus had Cecilia entombed in the Catacomb of Callistus, close to the ancient crypt of the popes where he himself was soon buried. That would indicate her date of death to be late second century to early third; 230 is often given as the year of her martyrdom. Urbanus had a church built over her house and dedicated to her, in what is now the Trastevere quarter of Rome; the church was rebuilt by Pope Paschal in 822. Her relics, as well as those of Valerianus and Tibertius, were reburied there. Later archeological excavations have uncovered Roman buildings, and a side chapel of the church purportedly shows the bath in which Cecilia was nearly martyred.
Over the centuries, Cecilia’s cult grew, only strengthening her myth. Artists, sculptors, poets, and musicians celebrated her in their works. Raphael, Domenichino, Gentileschi, Reni, Tiepolo, Guercino, and Poussin are among many artists who painted her from their imaginations, especially during the Renaissance, often with musical instruments and keyboard. The sculptor Moderno witnessed the opening of her tomb in 1599; he made a marble sculpture of her with the three sword marks and blood, which he swore was the way in which he saw her body uncorrupted.
Cecilia became the patroness of the Academy of Music which was founded in Rome in 1584, and numerous musical groups during the Renaissance paid tribute to her in their names. Composers were inspired to write for her, including Lasso, Palestrina, Scarlatti, Handel, Haydn, Purcell, Gounod, Charpentier, Liszt (three times), Parry, Howells, Finzi, and Britten. This should keep The Boston Cecilia supplied for some time with music in honor of our patron saint.
Boston Cecilia Overseer Kendra O’Donnell has painted three of her own imagined portraits of Saint Cecilia, two of them for concert programs in the 2013-2014 season. You can see the roses and lilies which were the angel’s gift to Cecilia. You will also find her Roman house in flames, as her executioners tried to suffocate her in her bath. The music in two of the images is from Purcell’s Ode to Saint Cecilia. In the third, the necklace of notes is from the Osanna in Bach’s Mass in B Minor, our March 21st, 2014 concert at Jordan Hall.
Sancta Caecilia II by Kendra O'Donnell, oil on paper, 2013.
Sancta Caecilia III by Kendra O'Donnell, oil on paper, 2013.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, an online resource, provided information for this post. Thanks also to Brian Burke, Celia Lewis, and Patrick O’Donnell.
CECILIA: WE'LL E READY FOR BACH'S B MINOR MASS
BY NICHOLAS WHITE
Cecilia's intrepid and experienced bass section show off their chops at rehearsal.
“If we’re not ready now, we never will be…!”
The quotation above was overheard at a church music conference several years ago, soon before a late-afternoon performance of Bach’s B Minor Mass sandwiched between workshops and plenary sessions and a boozy evening boat cruise. Ideal circumstances for a cutting edge, historically-informed performance of this two-hour masterwork, with the finest-period instrument players and a 26-voice professional choir? Maybe not! However, as the conductor responded to the concerned delegate who wondered why the performers were not busily rehearsing in the hours before the concert, “If we’re not ready now, we never will be!”
He was right, of course. Not only had the musicians been meticulously prepared, again, for this latest performance of the great work. In the director’s seemingly flippant comment was the truth that any performer must grasp when about to embark on the life-changing experience of this piece. The nitty-gritty detailed rehearsal needs to be accomplished far ahead and the big picture embraced well before concert week. Stamina, fortitude, the ability to respond in the moment, and a spark of spontaneity are among many elements that constitute a successful performance of Bach’s Mass in B Minor, a performance that will engage the audience and harness the emotions of all those present.
That’s why I’m glad that the dress rehearsal for the March 21st performance by The Boston Cecilia is on Wednesday, March 19th, two days prior, giving a full day for reflection before the concert itself. In every way, the final rehearsal takes on the mantle of a performance. It must do so if we are to stand any chance of being ready. That one remaining part of the equation – the audience – will then play its own role in the success of the actual concert.
That’s why I’m glad that the performance—along with Bach’s 329th birthday—comes on a Friday evening, at the end of a long work week, when spirits are sagging, the commute to Jordan Hall has been challenging, the weather is unpredictable, and energy needs to be summoned from somewhere. This is when performers and audience members can come together, inspired by each other, to create moments of magic that transcend the real world. Yet this masterpiece is packed with humanity, almost unachievable by mere mortals, and can feed from those challenges that we, as humans, face on a daily basis.
That’s why I’m glad that Cecilia had the foresight to reserve Jordan Hall for this occasion, even before I had been hired as music director! What a gift for all of us to end the 138th season of this great organization with a performance of Bach’s masterpiece. It is very real, very relevant, and very exciting.
We will be ready! Won’t you join us?
BOSTON CHORAL AUDITIONS 2013 - THE AUDITION IS THE FIRST STEP
BY NICHOLAS WHITE
Greetings, and welcome to The Boston Cecilia Blog!
We are about to begin the final few audition sessions for The Boston Cecilia, as we start our exciting 138th season of concerts. Having just recently been through the three year search process that resulted in me taking on the enviable position of Music Director, I feel qualified in talking about the audition process!
What are we looking for in a new singer? What will be asked of you? Why would you subject yourself to any form of scrutiny? Let me offer some answers to those questions.
Every effort is made to put you at ease. After all, we want to hear your voice at its most relaxed and free. We are looking for voices with personality, but voices that also work well in a choral texture. The ability to blend with fellow singers is crucial. The ability to read music well- a skill that is all too often lacking these days – is highly desirable, as is the willingness and ability to learn your part outside of rehearsals. A good sense of humor and a commitment to energetic teamwork is a must. All of these skills are worked on and developed during rehearsals, but they are good prerequisites.
The audition will start with some vocalizing for a light warm-up and a general idea of vocal range. This will be followed by some sight-reading (on one’s own voice part) and finish with singing a piece that you have prepared for the audition, if you have one. Our assistant conductor, Barbara Bruns, will be there to accompany your piece, so bring an extra copy of your music if you would like an accompanist.
Auditioning for Cecilia is the first step towards being involved with performing Cecilia's diverse and rich repertoire. This coming season features some of my very favorite choral works. We begin on November 2nd with Maurice Duruflé’s sublime Requiem, along with works by Stanford and Harris and Herbert Howells’ incredible setting of the poem Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing. On December 6th and 8th the concerts will feature glorious music for the Christmas season, including Ave Rex by William Mathias and deeply touching carols by Warlock, Leighton, Dirksen, Pearsall and others. The most thrilling concert is saved for March 21st – J.S. Bach’s birthday – when we will present Bach’s Mass in B Minor with period instrument orchestra at NEC’s Jordan Hall. I couldn’t be more excited and energized to get working on this repertoire!
So, if you are a singer looking for your next challenge, why not consider joining us? There is still time to sign up. Rehearsals begin on Monday September 9th at 7:30pm, but we are still hearing potential chorus members well into September. Perhaps The Boston Cecilia is the next stop on your musical journey? Visit our Auditions page for more information or give us a call at 617-232-4540.