Concert a collaborative effort
With: Spiritus Chamber Choir and pianist Jeffrey Neufeld
When: Sunday at 3 p.m.
Where: First Baptist Church, 10037 109th St.
Tickets: $15 to $20, available at the door
If this Sunday’s program of double-choir music featuring Edmonton’s Da Camera Singers and Calgary’s Spiritus Chamber Choir goes extra smoothly, we can probably thank the lousy weather we’ve been having.
Distance and logistics play a role, of course, but those who know artistic directors Timothy Shantz (Spiritus) and John Brough (Da Camera), friends and ex-university roommates, can throw golf in as a factor as well. With both conductors making trips to each other’s city to prepare for the undertaking, the lure of a quick round while travelling between is almost too much to deny — except when an unexpected dump of snow hits.
“It’s something we all share,” mourns Brough from his Edmonton office. “Timothy and I as well as our mentor, Len Ratzlaff; we all love golf. Guess I’ll be waiting a little bit longer to play some of those courses out of the city.”
No need to feel especially sorry for Brough, though. Sunday’s Ring Out, Wild Bells program will provide enough excitement for the Ottawaborn conductor, especially given the novelty of two choirs being fused into one. Brough and Shantz tinkered with this notion a year ago, deciding that it would be a good project to get them out to the biannual conference taking place in Saskatoon this May under the auspices of the Association of Canadian Choral Communities. If their application to the event was turned down, they’d simply host concerts in each other’s city.
“As it turns out, we got in, so not only are we performing in Calgary on Saturday and Sunday in Edmonton, we’re also going to Saskatoon,” says Brough with well-deserved satisfaction.
Brough and Shantz have flipped coins on what pieces each will conduct for the concert, including Jonathan Dove’s The Passing of the Year, which uses the Tennyson poem from which the program derives its title.
“It’s written in sort of a hybrid minimalist style, very progressive, a little Philip Glass-like,” says Brough.
Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir, Samuel Barber’s Agnus Dei, Claudio Monteverdi’s Nisi Dominus from Vespro Della Beata Virgine, and James Rolfe’s Fall from Four Anthems for Four Seasons are also on the program.
Brough says the program came together remarkably smoothly, due as much to their shared experiences as students of Ratzlaff as by their friendship.
“We went over everything from tempos to breath marks, and it turned out that we pretty much agreed on everything. When I went down to work with Spiritus in Calgary, the choir actually remarked on how similarly we worked.”
It all comes down to the dress rehearsal before the opening premiere on Saturday in Calgary. The conductors have prepared them as well as they can, given the circumstances, but the choirs themselves won’t actually meet until then.
“It sounds like it’ll be close, but these choirs are good,” Brough says. “There are people who would have difficulty with something like this, but I’ve been very impressed with how it’s gone so far.”
