Longfellow Chorus Post Elgar King Olaf Videos

Dear ChoralNetters:

 

On March 3 and 4, The Longfellow Chorus, Portland, Maine, gave two rare performances of Elgar’s mammoth ‘Scenes from The Saga of King Olaf’ cantata, as well as the premieres of six new song and choral settings of Longfellow’s poetry. A number of clips from this weekend of concerts known as “The 2012 Longfellow Choral Festival: Ole Bull, Longfellow & Elgar (plus Grieg)” can be seen and heard on the Longfellow Chorus YouTube channel:

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/LongfellowChorus/featured

 

We had a number of interesting, strong audience reactions to Elgar’s King Olaf, such as:

“I attend that church, and I know they overheat it [but] I sat there with wave after wave after wave of chills washing over me as I listened.”

and

“I shall reevaluate Elgar now, as this was an enormous experience for me, and he is at the root of it.”

and

“I can’t understand why choruses don’t perform King Olaf as THE expression of how choral music should be.”

 

Best wishes,

 

Charles Kaufmann, artistic director

The Longfellow Chorus

Portland, Maine

http://www.longfellowchorus.com