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PressRoomLatest press releases
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Summer Choral Institute for all By Edward Reichel For several years, in fact since returning to Utah to become director of choral studies at the University of Utah, Brady Allred has wanted to establish a summer choral institute that would be aimed at everyone who enjoys singing. And given that Utah is known for its choral tradition, that would include practically every man, woman and child in the state. Allred hopes that many of them will take part in the new institute scheduled to get under way Thursday. This isn't a new idea with Allred, who, besides his job at the U., is also the director of the Salt Lake Choral Artists. It was something he started in Pittsburgh, where he was the music director of the Pittsburgh Bach Choir. "We had three very successful summers there, and it's been something I've wanted to do here," Allred told the Deseret Morning News. There are four sessions. The first three will feature a certain composer or period, and will star t on a Thursday and end the following Saturday. The fourth will explore some of the most famous choral works and takes place on four consecutive Tuesday evenings.The session that begins Thursday is devoted to the music of Mack Wilberg. Among the works that will be sung is the "Tres Cantus Laudendi" ("Three Songs of Praise"). The University of Utah Singers will also participate. "I wanted a large enough group to balance the brass," Allred said. The next session runs June 21-23. The main work that will be sung is John Rutter's "The Mass of the Children." The third segment, devoted to the baroque, runs June 28-30. Among the works performed are Vivaldi's Gloria and J.S. Bach's Magnificat. The final session starts June 19 and runs over four consecutive Tuesdays. Selections from Haydn's "Creation," Brahms' Requiem (in Lara Hoggard's version), Mendelssohn's "Elijah" and Mozart's Requiem will be sung. All of the sessions are open to high school and adult singers, while the second session will also be open to children. "I want to reach out to folks who want to sing but don't have the time during the year," Allred said. "We don't require auditions, and we're sending out practice CDs with the music packets so people can practice before the sessions start, because rehearsal time is limited." While response to the institute hasn't been what Allred had hoped for so far, he's still optimistic. "We started out small in Pittsburgh," he said, with only about a hundred people taking part that first summer. "By the third year, that number had tripled." And Allred's certain the same thing will happen here. "It's a great experience. We're covering a lot of ground, and I picked things that might appeal to everyone." Allred's goal is to make the summer institute an annual event and expand it to a national level, not unlike the Berkshire Choral Institute. But right now, Allred just wants the first year to get off the ground. "I want people to have a great time and enjoy the experience." And while the registration deadline has already passed, Allred said that people are still welcome to sign up, right up to the first day of each session. Here is a rundown of the sessions:
If you go Harmonizing at choral camp By Celia R. Baker Forget Jell-O: What Utahns really like is singing. The proof is in the state's unusually large number of professional, church and community choirs, and its tradition of strong participation in high-school and university choirs. Knowing that, conductor Brady Allred came up with a way to allow Utah singers of all ages to learn and perform high-quality choral literature within a compressed schedule. It's a plan that can work for would-be singers who can't make the long-term commitments required for membership in a performing choir. Allred is director of choral music at the University of Utah and conductor of Salt Lake Choral Artists, which comprises several community choirs. He is directing a new Summer Choral Institute under sponsorship of the Salt Lake Choral Artists, with collaboration from the U. The institute targets singers who enjoy performing major choral works, but have fewer opportunities since completing high school or college. "I've noticed that there are a lot of people here who love to sing, but can't make the weekly commitment to participate in a choir," Allred said. "People tell me they miss singing." Allred's solution is a series of three brief choral camps, each featuring a three-day rehearsal period capped by a performance in Salt Lake City's Libby Gardner Concert Hall. A fourth session is set up as a series of Tuesday-night readings, in which participants will sing through Haydn's "Creation," Brahms' "German Requiem," Mendelssohn's "Elijah" and Mozart's Requiem without the pressure of polishing them for performance. The Summer Choral Institute idea worked for Allred in Pennsylvania, where he was conductor of the Bach Choir. That group sponsored a summer institute for singers that saw participation double after the first year and triple after the next. Allred is tailoring his brainchild to Utah tastes by aiming one of the sessions toward families, centered on the music of John Rutter and featuring a performance of the composer's "Mass of the Children," written for adult and children's choirs with chamber orchestra. The culminating concert will include performances by adult, high-school and children's choirs along with the combined performance. "The idea is to get families to sing together, from children to parents to grandparents," Allred said, "especially here in Salt Lake City, where we have this love of singing and of doing things together with family." It's music to the ears of one Sandy family. Taylor and Coralyn Smith, members of Salt Lake Choral Artists, have signed up to sing alongside their daughter Linda, a member of Salt Lake Children's Choir. "We all love singing, and have sung together a lot as a family," said Coralyn Smith. "This is another opportunity to do that." "I think it's cool, because I like John Rutter and his music a lot," said Linda Smith, 12. "It's more time with my parents doing what we all love." Taylor Smith, a high-school music teacher, believes arts participation is essential for young people. "It helps self-esteem," he said. "As kids get into their talents, they become better human beings. They do better in their schooling and everything else." Allred said he hopes the Choral Institute will form a bridge between the U. and families of its community, acting as a feeder program to his college choirs and to Salt Lake Choral Artists. "I've learned that unless you are reaching out to the community, there can be a huge barrier between the university and the community," Allred said. "At least in music, sometimes professors can be a little snobbish. "My goal is to train people how to sing and help them sing better. I'm willing to work with whatever level comes to me to help them grow and get better." Singers will perform with professional instrumentalists - chamber orchestras for sessions centered on music of Rutter, Bach and Vivaldi; brass, percussion and organ for a session on the music of Utah composer Mack Wilberg. One musician who plans to take advantage of the chance to sing - instead of play - is Frances Darger, a violinist in the Utah Symphony for nearly 65 years. Darger's daughter, Peggy Darger Sacher, saw a brochure for the Choral Institute while visiting her mother from her home in Delaware, and convinced Darger that they should attend together. The two will join the session on Wilberg's music, which fits best with their busy summer schedules. "It's kind of a mother-daughter thing for us to enjoy music together," said Darger, who has participated in choirs throughout her life. "It sounded like something different to do, and I'm looking forward to it." Summertime singalong Choral artists do justice to Brahms By Edward Reichel SALT LAKE CHORAL ARTISTS and SALT LAKE SYMPHONY, Libby Gardner Concert Hall, Saturday; additional performance Friday, 7:30 p.m. (581-7100). Johannes Brahms' "German Requiem" had its origins in the deaths of two people who were closest to the composer - his mother and Robert Schumann. As such, it is highly personal, and one of Brahms' most touching and heartfelt works. Unlike the traditional settings of the mass for the dead, there is no wrathful God or fear for Judgment Day in Brahms' Requiem. Instead, it is a work of consolation for the grieving and an entreaty that the departed find eternal rest. Never a religious man, Brahms nevertheless brought deep spirituality to his work. He selected passages from the German translation of the Bible that fit his beliefs. Usually performed in German, there have been several English translations. The best known of these is perhaps Robert Shaw's, which the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed and recorded shortly after Shaw's death in 1999. There is another English translation by Lara Hoggard, who spent some 20 years meticulously researching the German text and creating a new translation that more accurately reflects the original and more closely fits the spirit of the work. The Salt Lake Choral Artists, under their director Brady Allred, gave the Utah premiere of this version last weekend. They were joined by the Salt Lake Symphony and soloists Carol Ann Allred, soprano, and Christopher Holmes, baritone. (Holmes was a replacement for Darrell Babidge, who was scheduled to sing.) Brady Allred is, without doubt, one of the pre-eminent choral conductors in the country, and he brings the best out of his choral forces - and also the orchestra, as he once again showed Saturday. The Salt Lake Choral Artists and the Salt Lake Symphony may be community organizations, but under Allred's direction, they have a professional sound and quality. The ensemble sang magnificently. They sounded rich and resonant and responded well to Allred's direction. He coaxed a nuanced performance out of them, one that was dramatic where needed, but also poignant and deeply moving. The soloists were also wonderful. Holmes proved himself to be a worthy replacement for Babidge, as he brought feeling and profound expression to his two arias ("Lord teach me to know the measure of my days on Earth" and "Lo, I unfold unto you a mystery"). Carol Ann Allred brought tender expressiveness and heartfelt sincerity to her aria, "You now are sorrowful." She captured the poignancy of the words with great sensitivity and feeling. Choral Artists present forceful, evocative 'German Requiem' By Catherine Reese Newton Salt Lake City has an abundance of excellent choral conductors, especially for a community its size: Craig Jessop and Mack Wilberg of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Barlow Bradford of Utah Chamber Artists, Susanne Sheston of the Utah Symphony and Utah Opera choruses, even the Utah Symphony's Keith Lockhart, who has done some of his most memorable work in choral music. Another first-rate conductor, Brady Allred, came to town a couple of years ago and quickly proved a force to be reckoned with. Saturday, he led Salt Lake Choral Artists in a stirring performance of Brahms' "German Requiem." It's another sign of Salt Lake's active and vibrant musical scene that Saturday's concert wasn't even the first performance of the "German Requiem" here this month. Lockhart and the Utah Symphony gave a powerful reading of the piece a week earlier. Why so many "German Requiems"? Why not? The Utah Symphony's performances were in Brahms' German, while Salt Lake Choral Artists did a new English-language edition by the late Lara Hoggard - in the audience's language, as the composer intended. Besides, the "German Requiem" is a masterpiece worth hearing over and over. Saturday's performance played to a near-capacity crowd at the University of Utah's Libby Gardner Concert Hall. The 150-voice choir and the Salt Lake Symphony responded readily to Allred's dynamic direction, achieving an impressive range of musical colors. For example, a clean, cool sound in the opening "Blest are they who are sorrowful" brightened and warmed at the words "shall with rejoicing in joy be reaping." In the second movement, "For mortal flesh is as the grass," Allred brought the singers to a goosebump-inducing fortissimo in the final unison passage, then had them fade gracefully away like the withering grass. Another exhilarating crescendo came at the words "joy everlasting" in that movement's concluding fugue. Allred conducted with a good sense of the work's overall shape, making the central movement, "How lovely are thy dwellings," a calm, comforting interlude. The chorus' forceful delivery of the lines "the dead shall then rise up incorruptible" and "Death, where is thy sting! Hell, where is thy victory!" was another high point, as the singers followed Allred in an exciting accelerando. The final movement, "Blessed are the dead," brought the work to a soothing close. Soloists were baritone Christopher Holmes and soprano Carol Ann Allred. Holmes sang with pleasing, resonant tone in "Lord, teach me to know the measure of my days on Earth" and "Lo, I unfold unto you a mystery." Soprano Allred, who is also the conductor's wife, brought an air of consolation to "You now are sorrowful" with her serene interpretation. Salt Lake Choral Artists Brahms piece will close season Ed Reichel The genesis of Johannes Brahms' "A German Requiem (Ein Deutsches Requiem)" is not clear. Most musicologists believe the death of Robert Schumann, who was one of Brahms' closest friends, provided the first impetus for the Requiem. Others, however, including Schumann's wife Clara, were of the mind that the work was written as a memorial to Brahms' mother, who died about a decade after Schumann. In any case, what is important is that Brahms decided not to set the traditional Latin mass for the dead to music. Rather, he took selected passages from the German translation of the Bible to find his inspiration. In doing so, Brahms softened the tone of the work. Instead of the wrathful and fear-inspiring Latin Roman Catholic text, Brahms' "German Requiem" is filled with consolation and solace. It is without question the composer's most infinitely moving and poignantly expressive work. The Salt Lake Choral Artists, under the baton of music director Brady Allred, will close out its season Saturday with Brahms' Requiem. (There will be a repeat performance April 27.) Joining the 165-voice choir will be soloists Carol Ann Allred, soprano, and Darrell Babidge, baritone, along with the Salt Lake Symphony. Because of the work's intimate and personal nature, Brady Allred has decided to perform it in English. "I want the audience to experience the Requiem," he told the Deseret Morning News. The translation Allred will be using is a fairly new one by music educator, author and conductor Lara Hoggard, who passed away March 16 at the age of 92. "Dr. Hoggard worked on his translation for 20 years," Allred said. "It's really a classy edition." These performances will be the Utah premiere of this version with orchestra. (Bryce Rytting premiered it a few years ago, but with piano accompaniment.) The Salt Lake Choral Artists will dedicate both concerts to Hoggard, whom Allred met at the Eastman School of Music where Allred was a graduate student. Later Allred went to the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where Hoggard was teaching, to study the work. "I spent three days with him going over the score. I consider Dr. Hoggard a mentor and a friend." Allred said Hoggard and conductor Robert Shaw were working on their respective English translations at about the same time. The Shaw version is better known than Hoggard's (the Mormon Tabernacle Choir under Craig Jessop performed and recorded it a few years ago in the Salt Lake Tabernacle), yet the Hoggard is perhaps closer to the original German in content and spirit. Hoggard's translation differs from Shaw's and older translations significantly in some key areas. Allred said Hoggard painstakingly dissected the German original to uncover subtleties in the language that other translators missed. "Shaw and Hoggard used different word choices. But a major difference is in the aria 'How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place."' The Schirmer version uses the singular 'place,' Allred pointed out. "But Dr. Hoggard looked closely at the original and concluded that it should be plural. His version reads 'How Lovely Are Thy Dwellings."' These may seem like minor details, but Allred said it makes a huge difference in the Requiem's rhythm and musicality. "He slaved over it and did the best he could to make it flow." If you go By Rebecca C. Howard Most of our Christmas traditions - Christmas trees, Santa Claus - come from Western Europe. But Christmas right here at home has some nice traditions, too. Brady Allred, conductor of the Salt Lake Choral Artists, will be celebrating some of them in a concert Saturday titled "Christmas in the West." The focal performance will be a Conrad Susa piece that features Spanish carols popular in the Southwest. "It's a 10-movement work that's for a choir and harp, guitar and marimba, and it features carols from Spain and different regions of Spain, from Mexico, from Puerto Rico. We do sort of a mixture of Spanish and English translation so the audience is able to follow along." Allred said the Susa work was originally written as a companion to Benjamin Britten's "Ceremony of Carols," but in this concert, it will be paired with Christmas-carol arrangements by local composers. David Zabriskie, Robert Cundick, Richard Elliot and Mack Wilberg will be represented on the program. The choir will also sing Lowell Durham's arrangement of "Away in a Manger," which was made popular by the Tabernacle Choir, as well as a homage to that piece, "Jesus the Savior is Born," by Lowell's son Tom Durham. Allred said he also plans to include a piece by Ned Rorem, whom many don't associate with Utah. "He actually taught at the University of Utah as a visiting professor a long time ago, and in some of his writings he mentions eating at The Pie and all that, so I'm including a short a cappella motet by him." Brigham Young University alumni Dan Carter, Stephen Jones and Laurence Yorgason will have pieces on the program, and one of the choir members, Rich Smith, has also done an arrangement. Now in its third season, the choir is up to about 160 members - double its original number of 80. The singers are divided into several smaller groups - the concert choir, the chamber choir and the women's choir. "We now have a fully functioning board of directors and choir officers, and we most recently opened our season with two performances of 'Carmina Burana' that were both sold out." That was in collaboration with the Salt Lake Symphony, with whom they will collaborate again this spring for a performance of the Brahms Requiem. At present there are ongoing negotiations with Ballet West for performances of "Carmina Burana" in the spring. "Down the road," Allred said, "we're hoping to include a children's choir under that umbrella, as well." If you go 'Carmina Burana' is breathtaking By Edward Reichel - Deseret Morning News SALT LAKE CHORAL ARTISTS, Libby Gardner Concert Hall, Saturday The Salt Lake Choral Artists opened its new season over the weekend with a resplendent performance of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana." But more than just being a stunning season opener, Orff's choral masterwork also heralded the ensemble's new name. Formerly known as the Utah Choral Artists, the group was forced to change its name by the Utah Chamber Artists earlier this year; the latter feared the similarity in names was detrimental. As far as the renamed Salt Lake Choral Artists are concerned, however, no matter what they call themselves, their concerts are on a high professional level, thanks to director Brady Allred's exceptional leadership. He elicits a dynamic performance from his singers, and they give him what he expects of them. Allred has shown he isn't afraid to go out on a limb with his singers, either. Mozart's great C Minor Mass, K. 427, late last season, and now Orff's stunning "Carmina Burana," have proven that the 150-voice choir is up to any challenge Allred might throw at them. Saturday's performance was of a quality and caliber that belied the choir's volunteer status. The Choral Artists, augmented by the University of Utah's A Cappella Choir, sang forcefully, with self-assurance, passion and feeling to the point of bursting the confines of Libby Gardner Concert Hall. Allred showed an intimate knowledge of the work. His reading captured the breadth and immensity of the score, while at the same time paying careful attention to small details of expression and nuance. That came especially to the fore in the "Cour D'Amour" ("Court of Love") section, which deals with the sensuality of physical love. The chorus and soloists gave a richly colored performance that underscored the voluptuousness of the music. Joining the chorus were soloists Genevieve Christianson, soprano; George Dyer, tenor; and Clayne Robison, baritone. The three sang breathtakingly. Robison was particularly remarkable in "Estuans interius" ("In Rage and Bitterness") and, with Christianson, in "Tempus est iocundum" ("Pleasant Is the Season"). Orff gives the tenor only one solo, but it's one of the most visually stunning numbers in the entire work, and Dyer made the most of it. "Olim lacus colueram" ("The Roasted Cygnet Sings") is a wickedly witty song describing the last moments of a roasted swan before it is devoured by the hungry guests at an inn. Dyer gave a painfully vivid performance that captured the imagery wonderfully. The Salt Lake Symphony accompanied the singers and played radiantly. Allred kept his large forces in balance - no small accomplishment in Libby Gardner, where the acoustics can be challenging, particularly with such a vast number of performers. Admirable adaptation of C Minor Mass By Catherine Reese Newton Completing Mozart's unfinished C Minor Mass was an ambitious venture for musicologist Robert Levin, and singing it is an ambitious venture for a volunteer choir. Brady Allred's Utah Choral Artists did an admirable job with the choral masterpiece on Saturday. Levin, best-known for his reconstruction of Mozart's famously unfinished Requiem, recently took on another musical mystery: He spent a year filling in the musical blanks in the C Minor Mass using Mozart's sketches, fleshing out the Credo movement and fashioning a concluding Agnus Dei with some material from the cantata "Davidde penitente." Levin makes a good case for his choices in his program notes, and the resulting 90-minute Mass is equally persuasive. The 140-voice Utah Choral Artists, soon to be known as the Salt Lake Choral Artists, clearly invested ample time in rehearsal. The singers moved nimbly and projected the Latin text with uncommon clarity. Their enthusiasm was particularly evident in their forceful delivery of the Qui tollis and the Credo; there was much head-bobbing and swaying with Mozart's insistent rhythms. The singers also showed good control of dynamics, responding readily to Allred's direction. Soprano Carol Ann Allred, the conductor's wife, had the biggest role among the soloists; fittingly, it was Mozart's wife, Constanze Weber Mozart, who sang the role at the Mass' premiere. Allred's best work was in the gently pastoral Et incarnatus est, in which the woodwinds complemented her to lovely effect. Mezzo-soprano Laura Garff Lewis, tenor George Dyer and baritone Eric Glissmeyer also performed capably. The 32-piece Utah Choral Artists Chamber Orchestra didn't always have perfect intonation, but its performance was of generally high quality. The Mass was plenty of music for a choir to perform in one evening, but it was evident from the noisy ovation that the large and appreciative crowd in Libby Gardner Concert Hall would have stayed for another hour. Review: Utah Choral Artists |
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