On December 10th, the choral world lost one of
its celebrated and respected choral conductors. Diane Loomer died in
Vancouver, Canada after a short illness. She was 72. Here Chorus America
board members Susan Knight and Leonard Ratzlaff remember their
colleague and friend.
A native of Minnesota, USA, Diane moved to Vancouver in 1962. She was
known for her many contributions in the choral sphere, but perhaps most
prominently for her co-founding, with Morna Edmundson, of the women’s
choir Elektra (1987) and the founding of the men’s choir Chor Leoni
(1992). The latter was inspired by Sweden’s renowned male choir, Orphei
Drängar, founded by Eric Ericson. Both Elektra and Chor Leoni performed
and toured nationally and internationally, as well as regularly
recording and broadcasting. Both choirs were in receipt of many
accolades for their choral excellence. In 2007, Diane created her last
ensemble, EnChor, intended for experienced singers “who had reached
their 55th birthday”.
In addition to her choirs, Diane led an active career as a guest
conductor and clinician. In 1994, she was the first female musician to
conduct Canada’s National Youth Choir. She was a leader and encourager
of choral colleagues and singers alike. Mentorship of young choral
musicians was important to Diane, and she established programs to
nurture their development. Diane gave great energy to promoting Canadian
choral composers, and left a prolific commissioning legacy. This work
was further enabled through the dissemination of these works through her
dynamic touring, broadcasting and recording practice, as well as
establishing, with her husband Dick, Cypress Choral Music, a publisher
of Canadian choral music. A great supporter of arts organizations, most
recently, Diane served as Vice-President for Advocacy from 2008-2012 on
the board of the Association of Canadian Choral Communities. In 1993,
she was a key organizer of IFCM’s 3rd World Symposium on Choral Music.
She was also a sustaining member of Chorus America, providing the
organization with additional support beyond her membership dues.
As a conductor, Diane’s instinct and philosophy was informed by her
core belief in the person and in community, and the power of choral
music to inform and enrich life. An impeccable musician, her work was
also infused with empathic connection to her singers, the music and her
audiences. In a recent national radio interview, in speaking about the
sound of her men’s choir Chor Leoni, she witnessed this belief: “It’s
sensual, it’s human, it can be brilliantly heroic and achingly tender...
[it] can envelop and cradle listeners in a visceral way.”
Diane Loomer was a member of the Order of Canada, the nation’s
highest civilian honour. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from the
University of British Columbia in 2011. However, for all those who had
the privilege to know her, she will principally be remembered for her
delight in life and the caring warmth and inspired gift which she so
generously shared throughout her stellar career.
Diane was, quite simply, a marvelous musician and human being. I can't say I knew her extraordinarily well, but had enough opportunities to be around her, talk with her, and hear examples of her work, dating back to 1990, to know what a special person and artist she was. Here a short obit from the Vancouver Sun--there will be more in the next few days from many sources, I know. A sad day for all of us in the choral world.
Famed Vancouver choir founder Diane Loomer dies at 72
Diane Loomer, the founder and artistic director of famed Vancouver men's choir Chor Leoni, has died.
A
notice on the choir's web site says Loomer, who died Monday, left a
legacy that is "alive in the many works of Canadian composers and
arrangers she championed, the artists and conductors she mentored, the
singers she led in workshops, rehearsals, and performances around the
world, and in the hearts of every past and present member of Chor
Leoni."
The notice added: "Our thoughts are with her husband Dick
and her family at this sad time and we request that you respect the
privacy of the family."
Born in Minnesota in 1940, Loomer was also
co-founder and conductor emerita of Elektra Women's Choir, a member of
the Order of Canada and a YWCA Vancouver Woman of Distinction in Arts
and Culture.
Vancouver Symphony Orchestra conductor Bramwell Tovey
once said of Loomer: " Under Diane Loomer's direction, Chor Leoni has a
polish, a sound, a spontaneity and a style that I feel is unequalled by
any male voice choir that I have ever heard - and that includes the
best on offer at the Eistedfodd in Wales."
We're very lucky at UNT to have support for live streaming of concerts and to be able to convert that video to YouTube clips. Huge thanks to Blair Liikala for all his work on this!
One of the things that makes a huge difference in how much your choir
accomplishes is what I'll call the "density" of rehearsal. By that, I
mean that the ratio of hard, focused work on those things that need it
(versus the time that isn't so productive).
There are lot of things that go into this, much that has to do with you
and not your choir: your preparation (knowing the music, knowing what
will be challenging or not), having solutions for problems at hand
(rehearsal techniques/devices), having a well thought-out rehearsal
plan, etc.
However, part of it is convincing your choir (building the culture) for hard, focused work.
I'll go back to Doug Lemov and John Wooden for this (and much more about both in future installments): Lemov (author of Teach Like a Champion) has a new book called Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better.
Lemov's rule 7 is "Differentiate Drill from Scrimmage." One of the
noticeable things about the way Wooden worked his UCLA teams was to
spend much more time in drill (focused on specific skills) than
scrimmaging (playing a mock game). The advantage was that in drill, he
could focus his players' work on skills and techniques that needed work
(passing, shooting, defence, etc.), whereas in a scrimmage, only one
player had the ball at any one time and less work for each player.
I introduced this idea to my choir this fall, equating scrimmage with a
run through of a piece or section of a piece--valuable for both me and
them to see where they were, what worked well and what didn't (and, of
course, to get the experience of singing through the entire piece, which
is what they'll do in the concert). However, I explained that we would
accomplish most with drill, where we worked the difficult
sections of a given piece of music, or focused on pitch, vowel, rhythm,
vocal technique, or whatever else needed special attention. Sometimes, I
simply said, "scrimmage," so they'd know they were doing a run-through,
and to work towards what the performance would be (and to note what was
and wasn't ready yet).
In drill on the other hand, they knew they were going to do
multiple repetitions of something, perhaps only a few notes, but with
great focus on whatever elements were brought to their attention.
They got the concept very quickly, which has meant a much greater rehearsal density for this choir. There are other elements in building this, but I hope you get the idea as well.
Of course, the level and age of your choir will determine how much and
how long you can focus on small, but important, elements of the music,
and how many repetitions are possible before you need to move to
something else. We all have to figure out what the attention span is
(although part of building a great choir culture is gradually
lengthening and deepening your singers' abilities in this regard), how
quickly to pace, how quickly to move from one activity to another.
However, even with young singers, I've seen incredible concentration and
focus -- and not all in "elite" situations. It's amazing how much
young people can learn to do, given a wonderful conductor with the skill
to teach them!
Beethoven, With Not-So-Subtle Attacks of Piccolo, Drum and a Standing Violinist
By
CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM
Too often we think of historically informed performances in terms of
what is stripped away: less vibrato; fewer players; the muted brilliance
of gut strings and natural horns. But as John Eliot Gardiner
demonstrated in two red-blooded performances of Beethoven masterworks at
Carnegie Hall this past weekend, the period-instrument movement is, at
its best, an ambitious grab for big effects and heightened expressive
power. On Friday he led his Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique in a flame-drawn rendition of the Ninth; on Saturday he gave a glowing performance of the “Missa Solemnis.”
Mr. Gardiner created the Orchestre Révolutionnaire, a large symphony
orchestra playing on 19th-century instruments, in 1989, but its sounds
still hold surprises. Some are quietly revealing, like the wood-bodied
flute that insinuates itself into the soloists’ quartet in the “Et
incarnatus” of the “Missa.” Others come as a shock: the kettledrums that
sound like cannon fire; the piercing insistence of a piccolo that seems
to have been requisitioned from Napoleon’s army.
But, ultimately, the choice of instruments is like casting in theater: a
dream lineup of character actors still needs a director with vision in
order to tell the story. For Mr. Gardiner, that vision begins with the
text. Even in the purely instrumental movements of the Ninth, there
appeared to be words encrypted in the music, so declamatory and
speechlike were some phrases. At other times he whipped up furiously
fast tempos that left no room for the sort of ponderous self-importance
that can sneak into performances of Beethoven’s music and that are
deadly in the extensive fugues of the “Missa.” Mr. Gardiner is an
expressive conductor, shaping phrases with expansive arm gestures and
the occasional sideways flick of a hip.
In the choral finale of the Ninth and throughout the “Missa,” the
primacy of the text was never in doubt. The Monteverdi Choir sang it
with crystalline diction and extraordinary flexibility, giving
individual words deliberate dabs of color. Rarely has the word “Kuss” —
the poet Schiller’s kiss to humanity in the “Ode to Joy” — been
delivered with such panache. The “Sanctus” of the “Missa” was uttered in
hushed whispers like an incantation.
The English bass Matthew Rose made an authoritative entrance in the
Ninth when he jumped to his feet to sing his introductory recitative. In
the “Missa” he showed great reserves of power and depth. Some of the
most moving solo singing came from Jennifer Johnston, whose mezzo glows
with unforced feeling and whose pure style fits well into the
period-instrument world. The soprano Elisabeth Meister and the tenor
Michael Spyres rounded out the finely matched quartet of soloists.
But certain instrumentalists, encouraged by Mr. Gardiner, managed to
steal the spotlight when he invited many of them to stand for their
solos. Among them were Peter Hanson, who rose for the extensive violin
part that meanders in and out of the “Benedictus,” and the three
trombones who acted as a sort of celestial press gang throughout the
“Missa.” In the final bars of the “Ode to Joy” the piccolo stood in
front of the chorus like a fifer leading his troops into battle.
Ledger was best-known to most of us as conductor of the King's College Choir from 1974-82, following Sir David Willcocks.
He had a distinguished career, as one can see from his Wikipedia post:
Sir Philip Stevens LedgerCBE
(12 December 1937 – 18 November 2012) was a British classical musician
and academic, best known for his tenure as director of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge between 1974 and 1982 and as director of Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama from 1982 until his retirement in 2001. He was also a composer of choral music and an organist.
Sir Philip was born in Bexhill-on-Sea in 1937 and educated at King's College, Cambridge.[1] When appointed Master of the Music at Chelmsford Cathedral in 1961, he became the youngest Cathedral Organist in the country.[1] In 1965 he took up the post of Director of Music at the University of East Anglia
where he was also Dean of the School of Fine Arts and Music and
responsible for the establishment of an award-winning building for the
University’s Music Centre, opened in 1973.[1] In 1968 he became an Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival with Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, conducting at the Snape Maltings on many occasions including the opening concert after its rebuilding, and playing in first performances of works by Britten.[1] He appears as continuo player on Britten's recordings of Bach and Purcell.
He was Director of Music at King’s College, Cambridge
from 1974–1982 and Conductor of the Cambridge University Musical
Society from 1973-1982. During his years in Cambridge, he directed the
Choir of King’s College in the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, made
an extensive range of recordings and took the Choir to the USA,
Australia, and Japan for the first time.
He was subsequently Principal of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama from 1982-2001 where in 1988 new premises for the Academy were opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Since that time Ledger has appeared as a conductor throughout the United Kingdom, North America, and Asia.
Ledger is also noted for his original compositions and arrangements, particularly for choir. After succeeding David Willcocks
as director at King's, he wrote a number of new descants and
arrangements of Christmas carols, as well as new settings of popular
texts such as Adam lay ybounden and A Spotless Rose.
His arrangement of "This joyful Eastertide" for mixed voices and organ
has been widely performed and broadcast. Many of his compositions and
editions have been published by Oxford University Press, Encore
Publications, The Lorenz Corporation (USA), and The Royal School of
Church Music. His Requiem (A Thanksgiving for Life) is written
for soprano and tenor soloists with mixed choir and may be performed
with either orchestra, or with chamber ensemble or with organ.
The first recording devoted entirely to his choral compositions, including his Requiem - A thanksgiving for life was recorded on 7 and 8 December 2008 by Christ's College Chapel Choir, Cambridge, directed by both David Rowland and Sir Philip Ledger. The album (Regent Records) was released 16 November 2009.
Ledger has also composed an Easter cantata with carols entitled "The
risen Christ". Published by Encore Publications, his new work is
composed for soprano, tenor and baritone soli, choir and chamber
ensemble. The words of have been compiled from various sources including
original texts by Philip Ledger, Robin Morrish and Robert Woodings. The
piece also contains words by anonymous authors, two settings that have
been adapted from texts by G.R.Woodward and Christopher Wordsworth, as
well as a short extract from a poem by Olivia Ward Bush-Banks. The
cantata portrays three appearances of the risen Christ. The first of
these is to Mary Magdalene at Christ's tomb, the second to Cleopas and
another disciple on the road to Emmaus, and the third to Simon Peter at
the Sea of Tiberias. The US premiere took place at Washington National
Cathedral on 7 May 2011 in a concert by Cathedral Voices, conducted by
Jeremy Filsell. The first UK performance was given at Canterbury
Cathedral on 8 May 2011 during Evensong sung by the cathedral choir,
conducted by David Flood.
In 2012, Ledger composed another cantata, "This Holy Child", which is
a setting of the Christmas story with five original carols, "Jesus
Christ the apple tree", "The voice of the angel Gabriel", "In the bleak
mid-winter", "Hush! my dear, lie still and slumber" and "A little child
there is yborn". The words have been compiled from various sources
including poems by Selwyn Image.
Also courtesy of Norman Lebrecht's blog, which is consistently interesting. Well worth adding to your reader (if you don't have one to follow blogs--including mine!--try google.com/reader--it's easy to use and blog posts can be found at one bookmark).
As part of the Dutch government’s plans to dismantle the Broadcast
Music Centre in Hilversum – plans that also involve the abolition of an
orchestra and chorus – one of the biggest sheet music libraries in
western Europe is going to disappear.
Unless the MCO library can raise independent funding in the next nine
months, the scores will be sold to dealers or turfed out into the
street. About 5,000 have been digitized, the rest will be lost. You can
read more about it here (in Dutch).
What a shame that such a cultural resource would be destroyed or scattered in such a way that they would no longer be generally available.
Last time I discussed Doug Lemov's
100% idea: "There's on acceptable percentage of students following a
direction: 100 percent. Less, and your authority is subject to
interpretation, situation, and motivation."
So, what are his principles for getting to 100%?
He says there are three principles to ensure "consistent follow-through
and compliance in the classroom." The first of these is to use the least
invasive form of intervention, and this is so you don't have to
interrupt teaching (your rehearsal) to deal with a student who isn't
following through (talking, not paying attention, slumping in his/her
chair, music in their lap, not engaged, etc.) with your 100%
expectation. He then gives a list, starting with the least invasive
techniques, which means you should start as close to the top of the list (use the least invasive technique which will get the job done):
Anonymous individual correction - quick verbal reminder, but makes it
explicit that not everyone is doing what they should ("Two people are
still looking down")
Private individual correction - if you have to name names, if possible
do it quietly and privately (after rehearsal, at lunch or some other
time after class)
Lightning-quick public correction - name the student and quickly give
the correction ("Quentin, I need your eyes") - you can also follow up
with a positive ("Looking sharp, back row! Thanks, Quentin, much
better.)
Consequence - external consequences should be used as sparingly as
possible, but sometimes it's the only way to deal with an individual
(Lemov's further explanation: consequences should be delivered quickly
and in the least invasive emotional manner; don't allow it to interrupt
instruction/rehearsal; have a scaled list of consequences, so you can
match the significance of the response to the level of disruption)
I have to say, there's so much more and the book is well worth
reading, so take a look if you find what I've shared from Lemov
interesting . . . or perhaps it could be a great dissertation topic for
some DMA or Music Ed PhD--adapting some of the principles specifically
to the choral situation or observe and/or video "champion
teacher/conductors."
Again, a reminder that the goal is not "power" -- as Lemov states,
"Students need to follow directions quickly and completely so that they
can be assured of having the best chance to succeed." Interruptions,
lack of focus, singers who don't use good posture or vocal technique,
who are disengaged, lead to a poorer musical experience for all your singers. A choir which is
focused, doesn't chat, consistently follows principles of good
musicianship and vocal health gets much more done . . . and frankly, the
experience is a better one for everyone. It allows you to concentrate
on teaching: good technique, wonderful sound, musicality, and
expression. Isn't that what we want for all our students?
Finally, why the "thumbs up" at the top of the page when I've been
talking about interventions for disruptions to whatever you feel needs
100% compliance? Well, you should also to reinforce those students who are
doing what they should. That can be to the group ("great focus today!"
"what a fantastic sound you just made!" "did you hear how beautifully
that chord was in tune?!"), but can also be to individuals ("I love the
way you watch, Megan!" "Thanks for the great posture, Mike"). But I also
(usually after talking about something like looking up) find a
non-verbal way--and yes, I do use the "thumbs up"--while conducting to a
student whose eyes are with me. It tells them that I noticed, that I
care about what they're doing . . . and that also makes a difference.
Once again, the idea behind this series is how to build a positive culture in your choir.
John Wooden, the most successful college basketball coach in history,
was famous for the structure that he built into his practices
(rehearsals) and the clear expectations for each player on the floor. He
was amazingly detail oriented and believed that "little things make big
things happen" (the title of one chapter in his book, Wooden on Leadership).
For example, he talks at one point about how at the beginning of the
year he personally taught his players how to put on their socks and tie
their shoes--because if their socks were not put on properly, the player
could get a blister and affect his performance--and shoes not tied
properly could come undone in a game and cost points.
A few thoughts about "little things" to build into your choir's culture:
be on time (how does your choir expect to begin the rehearsal? In seats? quiet and ready to work?)
be prepared: have your music and pencil
use your pencil (which means teaching choir members how to mark their scores)
how to sit ("tall," feet on the floor)
how to hold your music (up so you can see music and conductor)
how to focus during rehearsal (is talk/chatter tolerated?)
One could go on -- I'm curious about what things you think are essential "little things." Let me know!
But once you've decided what your choir will "look/act like" in terms
of those little things, fundamentals (or whatever you wish to call
them), how do you build them into the choir's culture?
Doug Lemov's Teach Like a Champion is a really wonderful book.
Lemov is managing director of Uncommon Schools and concerned with how
to take lessons learned from master teachers and teach young teachers to do this same. If you're interested, check out the website
for the book, which has video examples and excerpts. The book itself
comes with a DVD that contains real-life examples illustrating the
principles in the book (the subtitle is "49 techniques that put students
on the path to college").
One of the techniques is simply called, "100%" (technique #36, by the
way!). The key idea is, "There's one acceptable percentage of students
following a direction: 100 percent. Less, and your authority is subject
to interpretation, situation, and motivation." Here's a bit more of what
he says:
The assertion that the standard, not the goal, is 100 percent
compliance may sound terrifying and draconian: a power-hungry plan for a
battle of wills or the blueprint for an obedience-obsessed classroom
where little but grinding discipline is acheived. The classrooms of
champion teachers belie this expectation, however. They finess their way
to the standard with a warm and positive tone. They are crisp and
orderly; students do as they're asked without ever seeming to think
about it. Yet the culture of compliance is both positive, and, most
important, invisible. Not only can these two characteristics be part of a
classorom with maximum order, but in the end, they must. Discipline
that is most often positive and invisible (that is, a matter of habit)
is, arguablly, the only sustainable variety.
Note the statements, "Yet the cultureof compliance is both positive, and, most important, invisible.
Not only can these two characteristics be part of a classorom with
maximum order, but in the end, they must. Discipline that is most often
positive and invisible (that is, a matter of habit) is,
arguablly, the only sustainable variety." Those are my italics, of
course--it is building a positive culture (habitual ways of doing
things) that reinforce themselves . . . ultimately leading to a much
more positive (and effective) experiene for everyone in the choir.
This is getting long, so I won't outline Lemov's ways of achieving 100%
here (next time!), but you may say, "This just seems like the old
lessons in classroom management." Well, that's true, in part. But unless
these "little things" and the concept that everyone in your choir will do things a certain way takes hold, it's very hard to achieve what you want musically.
But just to show that the "cultural" things I'm discussing are not just
"classroom management," but can musical habits as well, an example from
several years ago when I guest conducted the wonderful Exsultate Chamber Singers
in Toronto. At that time conducted by John Tuttle, the choir's musical
culture was decidedly Anglican/British choral tradition. One thing I
noticed right away was that they took a "lift" after every single
instance of punctuation (comma, semi-colon, period, etc.). It was their
culture to do this. Any new member coming into the choir would have
figured it out quickly and done the same. This meant I didn't have to
tell them every time I wanted them to breathe or take a lift in a
phrase. In fact, I needed to tell them if I didn't want a lift, but to carry through. However, it meant that this musical element was automatic with the choir.
This will be a short series about the idea of creating a "culture"
in your choir.
I've thought about this a lot over the years. By "culture," I mean
those things about the way the choir operates, what the singers do, that
become normal and expected--and once established are
"enforced" or maintained by the culture. When a new member joins the
choir, how much do they pick up about how to behave in this
choir simply by being a part of it for a few rehearsals? If you've ever
had a cultural anthropology class, you know that cultures develop ways
of interacting, social strata, and behaviors that don't need to be
externally enforced, but are simply a part of that culture, so anyone
growing up in that culture learns many (not all) of those expectations
by osmosis, rather than direct teaching or rules.
Of course, one can build a negative culture as well as a positive one!
I remember a few years ago having a great discussion about this topic over pizza with Robert Vance,
a terrific young choral conductor, now the Associate Director of Choral
Studies at Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music, but then a
student at CCM/University of Cincinnati, where I was a guest professor.
The discussion ranged widely over ways to do this (he'd just done an
interim posiition or sabbatical replacement), what to expect of your
singers and how to change an establlished culture. Since he'd been a
student of Joe Miller, who'd fairly recently moved to Westminster, we
talked about the things Joe had built in his previous position and how
that would translate to Westminster, which had gone through a couple
interim years after Joe Flummerfelt (who'd built his own, great culture)
retired. Having been part of transitions myself, I know how important
it is to think of what to build into the new culture (and to be aware of
what aspects of the pre-existing culture you might wish to change).
So, what are some things to think about? A few examples:
What does your choir expect to do when they walk in the rehearsal door?
What about posture in rehearsal?
Attention/focus?
Do they talk?
What do they know to do in terms of choral sound/vocal approach?
What's the approach to working on a new piece?
And one could go on and on.
How much do you consciously build the habits, behaviors,
approaches that you expect from your choir, so the way the choir works
(or older members of the choir) inform newer members about what it means
to be in that choir? How much can ultimately happen without having to
talk about it?
These are just a few of the things I'll talk about in the next few posts.
Many thanks to Philip Copeland for the invitation to share with you through the ChoralNet blogs! Let's get to it.
Since coming to the University of North Texas in 2009, one of my choirs
was a chamber choir (24-32 voices), the 2nd of the 3 mixed choirs at
UNT. This year, for a variety of reasons, Jerry McCoy and I decided to
make it a larger choir, around 65.
My own background, especially in the past 12 years or so, has had me
conducting chamber choirs, often around 24 singers, not larger groups
(unless guest conducting). So this forced me to think of more ways to
make sure each member of the choir understood and felt that their
contribution is important. Instead of being one of 6-8 in a section, now
they're one of 15-17. So it's been a fun process to work to create an
atmosphere that says to each singer in the choir: you're important and
what you do is crucial!
When I took over the Choir of the West at Pacific Lutheran University, I
inherited a number of practices from Maurice Skones, my predecessor.
One was that he almost always had the choir in quartets--and in fact,
always in double choir (both sides balanced as to divisi and
color/weight of voices), since the traditional opening piece while on
tour was for double choir. Even though I hadn't studied with Maurice, I
knew (or learned) a fair amount about his methods.
Of course, simply singing in quartets makes the singers much more
independent by itself--they can't "lean" on someone singing their part
right next to them. So I put them in quartets very early (I know this
isn't possible for everyone--you may have to do a lot of work in
sections before moving them into quartets). Furthermore, one of
Maurice's rehearsal techniques was to sometimes work with one choir (of
the double choir) at a time--this has several benefits: the other half
of the choir gets to listen to what's happening, and can more
easily hear for themselves what I'm talking about (are they together?
was that chord in tune? was the phrasing musical?), start to make their
own musical judgements as well, and there's also a small element of
competition (each choir wanting to outdo the other).
I've taken this a bit further, often having just the front or back two
rows of choir 1 or 2 sing, or even one row. That exposes the individual
singer even more--which means it's important that I give positive
feedback about what I hear. I don't want to shut them down or have them
fear singing in front of others! I've also had just a quartet, or in a
couple of cases, just one singer come up in front of the group to sing
and work on a passage. All of this reinforces the importance of what
every single singer does . . . and also gives each singer a chance to
show what they can do. More about this process later, since I have a few models in mind who have done this extraordinarily well.
Finally, this week I started rotating the rows, so the same row isn't
always in the front or back--this means I hear the individual voices
much better and know what they're doing--again, it's harder to "hide."
And since they're in quartets, it works perfectly well, although it
could work to rotate in a sectional formation so that the same group
isn't in back or front all the time.
As I say, it's been a fun process! I've enjoyed re-thinking my approach
to rehearsals, it keeps me creative, and from falling into the same rut
I've done for . . . well, a lot of years!
A fascinating series of interviews with Erich Leinsdorf after he conducted his final concert at Tanglewood following his 7-year tenure at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He speaks of what he considers the highlights, including the American premiere of Britten's great War Requiem.
Fabulous article/memoir about Marilyn Horne's early contacts with Stravinsky and his circle in LA. If you haven't heard Horne sing, you should--simply an amazing voice. Listen to her on YouTube here:
As a 13-year old, she sang with the Los Angeles Youth Chorale, conducted by Roger Wagner, and later it's successor, the Roger Wagner Chorale (as did Paul Salamunovich, who was 19 and had sung with Wagner's church choir as a boy--the 14-year old Marni Nixon also sang with the Youth Chorale). I knew Marni Nixon a bit when she lived in Seattle in the late 70's and early 80's and hosted a local TV show for kids called Boomerang. Cyndia Sieden, a coloratura soprano who sang with my Bach Ensemble for a couple years and also was the soprano soloist for me in a Mozart C Minor Mass (and later went on to an excellent international career), was studying with Marni at the time. We talked about Marni doing a concert with Seattle Pro Musica, but unfortunately, we never managed to make it work.
A wonderful article from the LA Times by Mark Swed. Note not only her personal friendship with Stravinsky and his circle, but the incredible repertoire she did (one of the earliest Monteverdi 1610 Vespers, Gesualdo, etc.):
Marilyn Horne at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. (Patrick T. Fallon, Los Angeles Times / July 29, 2012)
Marilyn Horne: Stravinsky and me
As Music Academy of the West readies the composer's 'The Rake's Progress,' the singer, who heads the academy's vocal program, reminisces about the composer.
By Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times Music Critic
July 28, 2012, 11:00 a.m.
SANTA BARBARA — On Oct. 11, 1954, a 20-year-old soprano, a recent graduate of USC, performed in the premiere of a new version of Igor Stravinsky's "Four Russian Peasant Songs" at the new and unusual music series Monday Evening Concerts, then held in an auditorium in West Hollywood Park. An all-American, a tomboy with the nickname Jackie, she would be singing Russian for the first time in her life, and the 74-year-old Russian composer, who had relocated to West Hollywood, coached her in the language at his home above Sunset Boulevard. He was so delighted with her that before long she was practically part of the Stravinsky family.
Seventeen days after that premiere, "Carmen Jones" opened in Hollywood. This was Otto Preminger's film version of the Broadway musical, which updated Bizet's "Carmen" to World War II, included new lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and starred Dorothy Dandridge as Carmen and Harry Belafonte as Joe (Don José) in the all-black cast. The white operatic soprano who brilliantly dubbed for Dandridge sounds for all the world like Dandridge. She was the same 20-year-old recent USC grad nicknamed Jackie. Her film credit was Marilynn Horne.
She is, of course, the Marilyn Horne, who became a great Carmen in her own right and an operatic legend.
Now 78, Horne, who looks robust and far younger despite a near-deadly bout with cancer, heads the vocal program at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. Each summer the academy stages an opera and this year Horne has chosen Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress," which was written in Los Angeles and had its premiere in Venice, Italy, three years before Horne met the composer.
The performances Aug. 3 and 5 at the Granada Theatre are the Santa Barbara premiere of the opera, which has experienced a curious neglect in Southern California. It was a good time to talk to Horne about those early days and how Stravinsky and Hollywood of the '50s helped shaped a uniquely important and influential American opera career.
After Horne's fateful first meeting with Stravinsky, conductor Robert Craft, Stravinsky's inseparable associate, frequently invited her to sing old and new music at the Monday Evening Concerts and the Ojai Festival. They became fast friends. Stravinsky's Russian maid took a liking to Horne (which impressed the old man), as did Stravinsky's wife, Vera, whom Horne refers to as "the dearest person, a great lady."
Before long, Horne was a regular at the Stravinsky dinner table along with the literary likes of writers Aldous Huxley and Christopher Isherwood. Composer Nicolas Nabokov was another. Horne calls him Nicky and has an amusing story about fighting him off the time he got her alone in a gondola late one night in Venice.
So what was it like being around the dinner table of the world's most celebrated composer at the time?
"You know, when you're young, that young, I was so stupid that I actually joined in the conversation. I knew this was the great man and maybe the greatest composer of the 20th century. But I wasn't afraid to be with him.
"That's what amazes me. I didn't just sit there mute."
Horne says the talk was usually about literature, music and current events, which Stravinsky followed closely. Conversation was mostly in English, although Stravinsky usually spoke Russian or French around the house.
His doctor was often present as well. "He was a bit of a hypochondriac," Horne explains. "There was no question about it.
"One night at dinner when he coughed, he popped a pill immediately. I didn't word it too badly, I just said, 'Maestro, have you always been interested in things medical?'
"He took a deep breath, 'I adooore medicine.'" Horne happens to be an excellent mimic (which helped her get the "Carmen Jones" gig), and her breathy, Russian-accented Stravinsky would be worth preserving for posterity.
Stravinsky valued Horne as much for singing early music as he did for singing his music. At the time, Stravinsky was fascinated by the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras, and thanks to the pioneering efforts of Craft and Stravinsky's friend, violinist Sol Babitz, Los Angeles became a progenitor of what later turned into the international early music revival.
Horne's contribution was as a member of the Gesualdo Madrigalists, which Craft had formed to explore the radical, weird music of the late 16th, early 17th century Italian composer who murdered his wife for infidelity. Stravinsky and Huxley were obsessed with Gesualdo. Huxley even toured California with the madrigalists, giving tantalizing talks about Gesualdo, whom he described as a "composer-flagellator."
The Gesualdo pieces were typically rehearsed in Stravinsky's home, and on the occasion when a bass line would be missing from the manuscript, Horne says that Stravinsky would go into his study and write one. They would sing from a manuscript with the ink still wet.
This also led to Craft and the madrigalists making some of the earliest Gesualdo recordings. Horne reveals that they were bankrolled by the film composer and new music champion David Raksin. Royalties were rolling for Raksin's score to "Laura," another Preminger film. "Dave too liked to be around the old man," Horne notes.
Horne came along too late to have had anything to do with "The Rake's Progress," the neo-Classical opera Stravinsky wrote withW.H. Audenand Chester Kallman as librettists. And it never worked out that she would sing either its soprano role of Anne, when she was young, nor the mezzo role of Baba the Turk when she was more mature. But Horne did have important, glancing connections with the opera.
One mentor was Carl Ebert, a noted German émigré stage director who headed the opera program at USC. Stravinsky chose Ebert for the world-premiere production of "Rake" in Venice. Horne says she also had many conversations about "Rake" with Craft. And Vera told her stories about Auden, who stayed with the Stravinskys. Apparently the poet rarely bathed and never used soap.
It was not until a full decade after the opera's premiere that Stravinsky's opera was finally mounted in L.A., with a student production at USC. Its U.S. premiere had been at the Metropolitan Opera and, recognized as one of the most important operas of the 20th century, it was being regularly staged in Europe. But Los Angeles Times music critic Albert Goldberg called the opera "deadly dull." Rather than USC presenting the work, he wrote, "it would have been just as well to let a sleeping dog lie undisturbed."
Stravinsky sent an enraged letter to the editor, complaining of Goldberg's "mole's-eye view of music history." The composer pointed out errors in Goldberg's review and concluded by protesting not only what he said about the "Rake" but the critic's "incompetence to write meaningfully about music of any kind."
A touring production of "Rake" by San Francisco Opera was given the next season at the Shrine Auditorium as part of the worldwide celebration of Stravinsky's 80th birthday. "Lord, what a bore!" Goldberg wrote.
Horne observed the bitterness between Stravinsky and Goldberg on several occasions and says it was known in Stravinsky's circle as the Goldberg Variations. "After one lousy Goldberg review," she recalls, "Stravinsky pulled a silver flask filled with Scotch from his pocket and handed it to me. 'Drink this immediately," he said. 'This is the only way to survive.'"
With Craft, Horne found herself singing all kinds of improbable music. She appeared in one of the first modern performances of Monteverdi's "Vespers of 1610." Now considered a major work of the repertory, it was then all but unknown. Stravinsky attended all the rehearsals and performances.
She also continued to take whatever film gigs came along or even do pop covers. She often appeared in the venturesome concerts of the Los Angeles Festival at UCLA that film composer Franz Waxman underwrote. During a festival performance of Honneger's "Joan of Arc at the Stake" she became a close friend of the ballerina and actress Vera Zorina. In addition, she began singing opera in the Shrine Auditorium with Los Angeles Guild Opera, where she appeared in Smetana's "The Bartered Bride," Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel" and Rossini's "La Cenerentola."
She took up with a Los Angeles Philharmonic bass player, Henry Lewis, after meeting him while singing at the Monday Evening Concerts, and they eventually married. Lewis became an assistant conductor of the L.A. Phil under Zubin Mehta and music director of the New Jersey Symphony, making him one of the first major black conductors. Horne met the young Pierre Boulez at the house of Los Angeles Philharmonic percussionist and composer William Kraft. She became chums with Arnold Schoenberg's widow, Gertrude. She worked with émigré conductors Fritz Zweig and Richard Lert.
Horne's career took her in an entirely new direction when she moved to Vienna in 1956 to try to make it in opera. She switched from soprano to mezzo-soprano and concentrated on bel canto repertory. But she never lost touch with Stravinsky.
"I have a wonderful memory of Stravinsky, about 1967," she says, beaming. "We were doing 'Oedipus Rex' in Canada, and a bunch of us were having a conversation. Somebody asked me, 'Jackie, have you ever sung such and such?' I said, 'I've already forgotten that.'
"And then Stravinsky said, 'Oh, the things that we forget. But Jackie, I will never forget the beauty of your voice.'
"That's a nice memory, I'll tell you. And it's even sweeter today."
And what about today? Horne has been one of the fortunate patients to survive pancreatic cancer. "I had another clean bill of health in early June," she says. "It's been five years now."
She then knocks on wood. The rhythm is Stravinskian.
It seems I'm writing too many obits lately as posts, but that's a consequence of getting older, I guess.
Al Swanson was two years older than me, but we (and his wife-to-be Eileen) were in Rod Eichenberger's University of Washington Chorale together. I sang in the choir at his wedding, in particular a setting of the Gloria from the Mass, composed by fellow student Alan Dorsey--I still have a copy.
As you'll see by the obit below, Al was an amazing recording engineer. After UW days we didn't keep in close contact, but Eileen, an accomplished violist, played for me sometimes, and my PLU choir did several projects with the Northwest Chamber Orchestra, where she was an original member and principal violist.
When I took on the Seattle Symphony Chorale from 1990-94, I was again in contact with Al, since he recorded all the SSO concerts and worked on the Delos recordings we did (I prepared the Chorale for 8 or 9 different ones in those four years). Later I also worked on a couple CDs as "producer" with Al for friends: one of Janeanne Houston's CDs and the Northwest Chamber Chorus with Steve Demorest.
Through recording so many artists, Al touched countless lives. He'll be greatly missed, most greatly by his family: Eileen, two children, and what will be their first grandchild this fall.
Albert Swanson
Albert George Swanson
Albert
George Swanson - audio engineer, musician, essayist, philosopher,
photographer, crossword puzzle creator, and adored husband, father, and
friend - died July 24 after battling an overwhelming blood infection. He
was diagnosed in 2010 with a rare autoimmune disease, Wegener's
granulomatosis, and had been on immunosuppressants from that time.
Al
was born Sept. 15, 1948, to Albert George Swanson and Aris Shankle
Swanson in Tacoma, where he grew up. He attended Mount Tahoma High
School and the University of Washington,
playing trombone in the Seattle Youth Symphony and in the Husky
Marching Band. While studying music and psychology as an undergraduate
and ethnomusicology as a graduate student at the UW, he began recording
music, which became his profession after college. Al went on to produce
recordings for dozens of musical groups throughout the Pacific Northwest
and beyond for more than four decades.
He served as the Seattle
Symphony's audio recording engineer from 1983 through 2006, recording
the Symphony's live performances and editing them for radio broadcast on
Classical KING FM 98.1. As the Symphony's audio engineer, Al
participated in the majority of the Seattle Symphony's prodigious
discography of more than 140 recordings - some 50 of which were reissued
this year -including the 12 that received Grammy nominations, working
with labels Delos, Naxos, JVC, MMC, and Reference Recordings, among many
others. Al served as principal recording engineer on numerous Seattle
Symphony albums, including the works of American composers Alan
Hovhaness and William Schuman.
Al's projects ranged from
orchestras, soloists and choruses to rap videos and bagpipe bands. Al
regularly recorded ensembles such as the Orcas Island Chamber Music
Festival, Music of Remembrance, Husky Marching Band, Seattle Youth
Symphony, Seattle Choral Company, Seattle Peace Chorus, the Esoterics,
and Seattle Girls' Choir, and he spent 25 years as the choir director at
Zion American Lutheran Church in Wallingford. He was instrumental in
the development of the Seattle film-score recording scene in the 1990s,
serving as chief technical consultant (look for Al's name in the closing
credits of "Die Hard: With a Vengeance" and "Mr. Holland's Opus"). In
1995, Al recorded the ballet score of "Swan Lake" in Saint Petersburg,
Russia, for the Houston Ballet, and in 1996 he recorded organist Carole
Terry on the legendary Ladegast Organ in Schwerin, Germany. Of Al's 2009
recording of the Icicle Creek Trio, Jerry Dubins of Fanfare magazine
wrote: "The results are astonishing. ... Without a doubt, this recording
captures the stage in one of the most transparent, lifelike sonic
images I've yet to hear. It's as if the musicians, having been
teleported from the recording session, simply materialize in my living
room."
In 1977, Al was one of the founding committee members of
the Audio Engineering Society's Pacific Northwest section. He continued
as a committee member through 1981, and served another term on the
committee in 1990. Al was elected chair of the Pacific Northwest section
in 1992, and vice-chair in 1991 and 1993.
Al was a man of his
mind, and his gift for wit and irony lives on in writings and essays on
all subjects. At any given time he was likely to be speaking, reading or
writing about topics such as corvid intelligence, quantum physics, the
artistry of Carl Barks, temperate rain forests, the psychology of music,
home construction, international linguistics, photographic techniques,
volcanology, and the health industry. He loved baseball, and in season
he could typically be found in his favorite easy chair with the Mariners
on television, one or more cats on his lap, and his composition book in
his hands.
After his diagnosis of Wegener's granulomatosis in
2010, Al became a self-taught expert on the condition. He was active on
forums and blogs dedicated to Wegener's for the rest of his life,
dispensing wisdom and serving as a resource for those suffering from the
rare disease.
Survivors include wife Eileen; daughter Amy King
and husband Geoffrey of Seattle; son Stephen and wife Jeanne of Spokane;
sister Pat Kaer and husband Bjarne of Goodyear, Ariz.; numerous nieces
and nephews; and his first grandchild, due in October. The family's
thanks go out to the staff at the Swedish Medical Center ICU and to Dr.
Robert Winrow for taking such good care of Al.
A celebration of
Al's life will be held at 7 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 5, in the chapel at
Bastyr University, 14500 Juanita Drive N.E., Kenmore, WA, 98028. Please
visit Al's online obituary and guestbook at www.bonneywatson.com. Memorials may be made to the Vasculitis Foundation at www.vasculitisfoundation.org.
Helmuth Rilling, about whom I wrote here, closes out his long run with the Bach Festival in Eugene this year. An amazing man with an even more amazing career!
Published:(Thursday, Jul 12, 2012 01:06PM)Midnight, July 12
As he prepared last week for
Sunday’s upcoming performance of the St. Matthew Passion, Helmuth
Rilling grilled his conducting students behind the scenes at the Oregon
Bach Festival, making sure that they were tuned into even the tiniest
details in the sprawling choral work by Johann Sebastian Bach.
As he has done here each summer for
more than four decades, the 79-year-old festival founder and artistic
director from Stuttgart, Germany, demanded that his students — who come
here from around the world to work with him — study the music’s text as
thoroughly as a good film director might explore the motivations of a
movie’s characters.
“These are texts that have a deep
meaning,” Rilling explains later that afternoon, relaxing with his wife,
Martina, at a borrowed home overlooking Eugene. “I always have to
challenge them to understand this.”
Rilling — and the Oregon Bach Festival itself — are at a turning point.
The co-founder, along with
University of Oregon music professor Royce Saltzman, of a little summer
music festival that grew to international prominence, Rilling is
stepping down from his post here after next year’s festival, turning the
title of artistic director over to Matthew Halls.
In a wide-ranging interview, Rilling
talked about everything from the St. Matthew — Bach’s longest work — to
American speed limits (he prefers the anarchy of the German autobahns,
which have no limits) and the little cigars that keep him going through
long hours of musical study.
First, St. Matthew.
As with most of Bach’s work, it is
music that is grounded in a particular faith, the European Christianity
of the 18th century. Bach himself was an organist and choirmaster, and
Rilling insists there is no way to take the Christianity out of Bach’s
music.
“Bach regarded himself as a musical
theologian,” Rilling says. “He had to do the same thing with his music
that the minister did with his sermons.”
And yet the conductor doesn’t think
it’s essential for the audience to share Bach’s Christian faith
(although Rilling himself does) to appreciate the music.
“That’s because of (Bach’s) ability
to speak to many human problems in the St. Matthew,” he says.
“Love.
Hatred. He speaks about disappointment. He speaks about betraying
someone.”
And so, Rilling has been able to conduct the St. Matthew to appreciative audiences in places such as Taiwan.
“Of course there are some Christians
there, but most of them are not,” he says. “And yet they are deeply
interested in the piece.”
Complexities present challenges
The St. Matthew requires enormous
forces to perform. It’s written for two orchestras and two choruses, as
well as a number of vocal soloists.
Rilling, who prides himself on
conducting without a score in front of him on the podium, admits that
the St. Matthew was one of the harder works to get control of by memory.
“It took me a long time to get that
piece in my head,” he says. “The most dangerous is the recitatives
(words spoken without a musical structure). It is easy to learn a fugue.
It’s logical.
“But the recitatives ...”
Rilling, like Bach, was an organist
early in his career, although he says he hasn’t touched the pipe organ
at his home in Stuttgart for 10 or 15 years. He also is a quiet
perfectionist, demanding a high level of preparation and understanding
from his musicians.
And he is harder on himself than he is on anyone else.
“That comes from responsibility to
the music,” he says. “I am responsible for the quality of the
performance, and that is a challenge.
“If I am well-prepared, I know that I can get the music ready for performance in the quickest possible way.”
Despite the fact he is known
primarily as a conductor of Bach, Rilling also has been a champion of
contemporary music at the festival, which has commissioned or premiered
works from such leading composers as Krzyztof Penderecki, Osvaldo
Golijov and Sven-David Sandström.
Rilling’s approach to new music is
fairly simple. He doesn’t care about styles of composition. What
he does
care about is engagement.
“There is one thing that is important,” he says. “Does it have the quality of speaking to the audience?”
Fesitival is part of his life
In person, Rilling is charming,
cordial and reserved. He is not given to small talk, and he gives the
impression of being a man who lives very much inside his own head.
Rilling pulls out a tin of small
cigars, imported from the Dominican Republic, and lights one up. He
explains the tobacco habit in terms of his work.
“I just started smoking 10 years
ago,” he says. “It’s because I sit there with my score. You can’t
imagine how many hours every year I sit there in a chair, studying my
scores.
“And together with that, I puff! I am working, and while working, I smoke.”
It’s clear that it is difficult for
Rilling to contemplate stepping down from his post with the Oregon Bach
Festival. He and his wife have spent a large part of their lives here.
In fact, he interjects, when you add
it all up they have lived in Eugene for more than two years. Their two
daughters, Sara and Rahel, have grown up as part of the festival; both
have performed here.
“I think it would be great for the
festival to have a hall the size of, say, 1,200 (seats),” he says. “The
(Hult’s) Soreng is too small. Beall Hall is too small.”
But the Hult’s Silva Concert Hall is
so large, at 2,500 seats, that many concerts can’t fill the space. And
the acoustics in the Silva are middling at best.
“We could do a Bach cantata, and you have 1,200 people and it’s sold out,” he says.
A commitment to education
Rilling has no special post-Bach plans.
“I very much like being at home,” he
says. “We have a beautiful house. I enjoy reading some beautiful books.
And sometimes my wife takes me on a walk.”
He and Martina also have their first grandchild, Rahel’s 3-month-old son, Joseph, to entertain them.
There is one thing Rilling insists is important that the festival never change, and that is the focus on education.
Rilling would like to see a youth
orchestra alongside the youth chorus, for example. He would like to add
voice classes and instrument classes to the conducting master class he
has taught.
“You can buy important names
anywhere and have them perform,” he says, referring to importing
big-name stars such as violinist Joshua Bell, who played at the
festival’s opening night on June 29.
“But this festival is unique. Why would you even do it without the education?”
My Collegium Singers from UNT (well, 14 of them) were invited to perform at the Berkeley Early Music Festival through the auspices of the Early Music America Young Performers Festival. June 7 we sang Tomas Luis de Victoria's Officium defunctorum (Requiem).
It can be found here, thanks to Charles Coldwell, who did a wonderful job recording.
Huge thanks to my singers, who did a fantastic job and worked really hard (and had fun!) prepping for the Festival and giving a wonderful performance.
I knew Roger primarily as a member of "Liederkranz," an organization that is a wonderful mix of fellowship and love of the choral art. I was a member of this group of conductors for about 8 or 9 years, which met in the Columbia River Gorge each fall. Roger was notable for his great sense of humor--the "seminar" the first evening at the local bar was always a place for the telling of new (or old) jokes and Roger always had some. The picture below captures him beautifully. He will certainly be missed. The article tells much that even I didn't know.
PORTLAND, OR -- The University of Portland community is mourning the
loss of Roger O. Doyle, a colorful and beloved professor of music at the
University of Portland for nearly forty years and cheerful sturdy
pillar of the music community in Portland, who died Monday, April 30 of
complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – ALS, “Lou Gehrig’s
disease.” Doyle was 72 years old and is survived by his widow Kay Reboul
Doyle, as well as his stepmother Lucille and stepsister Elizabeth, and
his nephews Kevin and Christopher Sanborn.
Born in Wichita, Kansas, on Christmas Eve, 1939, the younger of Daniel
and Minnie Doyle’s two children, Roger earned his undergraduate and
master’s degrees in music education at the University of Wichita (where
he was also a noted singer and tuba player, and served six years in the
Kansas Air National Guard), and a doctorate on conducting and choral
music from the University of Colorado. He taught in high schools in
Kansas and at Saint Mary of the Plain College in Dodge City before
arriving at the University of Portland in 1973, where he became
legendary for his energy, creativity, exuberance, tireless energy for
conducting choirs and orchestras, and booming laughter.
But for all his excellence as a teacher and admired colleague on The
Bluff, Doyle’s energy and influence ranged much further than the campus.
He directed Portland’s Choral Arts Ensemble from 1976 until his final
concert with that group in 2010. He served as president of Portland’s
classical radio station, KQAC (formerly KBPS) – famously persuading the
station’s board to purchase the broadcast license from Portland Public
Schools and become an independent station. He founded and directed the
Mock’s Crest Productions professional light opera run every summer in
the University of Portland’s Mago Hunt Theater. He was often a guest
lecturer for the Oregon Symphony. He lectured and conducted in Japan,
Austria, Denmark, and Ireland, twice conducting the National Chamber
Choir of Ireland. He conducted the Multnomah Club Balladeers for 35
years, from 1975 to 2010. He was a board member of the Metropolitan
Youth Symphony Orchestra for nearly thirty years. He was president of
the Oregon Choral Directors Association. He wrote graceful essays and
articles about music and composers for many periodicals. He founded the
annual Best in the Northwest Choir Festival, which has brought thousands
of talented high school students to Portland. He presented more
concerts in and around Portland than can be easily counted, among them a
series of famous sacred music events at Saint Mary’s Cathedral. He
persuaded Aaron Copland to donate his scores to the University of
Portland, he sang with Barry Manilow, studied with Robert Shaw, and
taught thousands of students to sing and to savor and appreciate music
and musical theater.
And among the many dreams and sweeping ideas he had that came to fruition, he finally did conduct Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis,
in 2008 in Saint Mary’s Cathedral in Portland, with the University
Singers and the Choral Arts Ensemble, in two legendary performances; he
finally did spend months in his ancestral Ireland, on a research
sabbatical in 1998, where, among other entertainments, he conducted high
school choirs and met the famous Irish composer Roger Doyle; and he did
finally conduct at the farewell concert his wife Kay had always
envisioned for him at the University, in 2010, with more than a hundred
of his students and former students singing their hearts out for the
professor who had changed their lives.
Yet for all his sweeping accomplishments and myriad projects, Roger’s
legacy at the University and in the city of Portland is his character
and cheer, his irrepressible humor and open friendliness, and the
absolute integrity of the way he lived his life. He loved music, he
loved his wife Kay, he loved bringing music to people and people to
music. He was an unforgettable man with an immense heart, a lovely tenor
voice, and a kindness bigger than an ocean. When he retired from the
University of Portland in 2010, beginning to suffer the effects of his
illness, the University community paid him the usual honors: emeritus
status, scholarship gifts gathered in celebration of his work and
spirits, an award for community service established in his name. But the
most telling events, perhaps, are the stream of visitors, letters,
calls, and notes to him from friends and admirers, so constant and dense
that Kay had to resort to scheduling callers in advance; and that June
2010 farewell concert for him, organized by his current and former
students, among them the wonderful Portland singer Julianne Johnson.
During the show Roger sat on stage, beaming, as wave after wave of the
young people he taught brought music back to him as a balm, a prayer, an
expression of deep love and respect.
Gifts in memory of Roger may be directed to the Roger and Kay Doyle
Scholarship Fund at the University of Portland, a scholarship devoted to
students of music.
Richard Sparks is a conductor.
He's Professor of Music at the University of North Texas, where he conducts the University Singers and Collegium Singers, and is also Chair of the Division of Conducting and Ensembles.
From 1999-2011 he was Artistic Director and Conductor of Pro Coro Canada in Edmonton, Alberta--a professional chamber choir; and a free-lance conductor/clinician working in the US, Canada, and Europe. He spent considerable time working with the Swedish Radio Choir in 2007 and 2008.
He's Conductor Emeritus of Choral Arts in Seattle, WA (which he founded and conducted from 1993-2006) and was Director of Choral Activities at Pacific Lutheran University from 1983-2001.
Albert George Swanson
