Personally I am as interested in performing a motet by Josquin, as I am in performing a Haydn Mass or a Bach Cantata or Tarik O’Regan’s latest composition. For example, in a single year, my Glee Club sang The Four Prayers of St. Francis of Assisi by Poulenc, and a beautiful Sanctus from Tallis’ Mass for Low Voices. Collegium performed the great motet Warum ist das Licht gegeben by Brahms, and the 20th century a cappella masterpiece: Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Chorus. Radcliffe Choral Society performs a Sanctus from a Palestrina Mass, a colorful piece by Tormis, a moving and compelling composition by Hilary Tann, and an incredible folk song arrangement by me!
I’m stimulated by a wide variety of compositional styles and genres and by many works written by composers today! I especially enjoy looking at publications of a cappella gems for mixed, men’s and women’s choruses. I’m thrilled to stumble upon a choral-orchestral masterwork from the 17th, 19th, 18th, or 20th centuries. These gems and major works seem to be the “apples of my eye”. There are lots of apples! I consistently want to perform these apples – in fact, I can’t wait to dig into them.
But why? Why do so many works seem to charge me up? “Why do we conductors want to perform your music” It begins, of course, with Score Study – that’s when we really get fired up about wanting to perform a composition. But why do we get fired up? Probably because we think it is a good piece, we like the piece, we like the text- it speaks to us. We know our choir will like the piece; we will have enough time to learn it, and we can’t wait to teach it because it is really worth teaching! The composition we choose is going to offer some education, some meaning, some insight into values: cultural, aesthetic, historical, stylistic, philosophical, spiritual, emotional, musical.
NEXT WEEK, we will discuss how we reach our programming decisions
READ Part 1 of this series.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.