Robert Eddy Photo
Composer Gwyneth Walker.
Sunday afternoon saw a wealth of appreciative music fans fill Woolsey Hall for the New Haven Chorale’s season finale that was also part of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas. Its program filled heads and hearts with a resplendent array of selections that focused on fond memories, gratitude for those memories as well as the present moment, and an offering of comfort and peace for those of us in the here and now, even as we grapple with grief and pain.
The New Haven Chorale, as Sunday’s event program stated, is “an auditioned, 120 voice professionally conducted volunteer chorus … using music creatively to make a difference in people’s lives.” With this performance the chorale completed its 74th year serving the Greater New Haven community, including opportunities to showcase local composers. The chorale is now gearing up for its 75th anniversary season beginning in August, which will feature collaborations with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and the Jeremiah Paul Ensemble as well as holiday programming that includes a free late October Halloween concert.
But on this early June day, concertgoers were bathed in late afternoon sun that streamed down upon them from the balcony windows as they bustled and buzzed their way to their seats in this hallowed hall of music. Chorus members entering from the sides of the stage received a huge round of applause, but as the first notes of the organ sounded, a hush fell over the crowd. There is something about hearing that organ at Woolsey Hall that is an experience unmatched elsewhere, and the opening piece — Wir danken dir, by Friedrich Sacher, as played by Anne Maria Lim — offered a rich, warm welcome to the show, a most befitting one coming from the hall’s most well-known occupant.
Music director Ed Bolkovac took to the podium to conduct the group in Craig Hella Johnson’s Song of Gratitude with piano accompaniment by Blake Hansen. That piece offered words of thanks, the repetition of the phrase “we bow down, namaste,” creating a harmony of mantra that washed over the crowd and yes, made the tears well up in my own eyes.
The first half of the program continued with pieces that focused on that gratitude and, as Bolkovac wrote in the program, “fond remembrances of the past.”
“We must not retreat from the problems of the world, but face them with strength,” he wrote, “a strength that can be bolstered by always remembering the many blessings in our lives that we all too often fail to notice.”
Two pieces featured poems by Rumi that reminded one of this very notion. One, the Christopher Theofanidis piece All Day and Night, Music, was first read without musical accompaniment by Carol Amico, who raised her hands to the sky when reciting the last line “let everyone climb on their roofs and sing their notes! Sing loud!”
That is exactly what the chorus did when the music was added in. It was a proclamation of presence, with voices that seemed as if they could be angelic and elsewhere but were right there rousing us into our own being.
The orchestra joined the proceedings after the piece I Thank You God by Gwyneth Walker, which took the poem “i thank You God for this most amazing” by E. E. Cummings as its lyrics, the chorus repeating the first line in an almost prayerful manner. Their first song saw mezzo soprano Rebecca de Almeida coming to the front of the stage near Hansen, who took over conducting duties for the piece “Le spectre de la rose” from Les nuits d’ete by Hector Berlioz. Her voice soared over the crowd with both strength and sweetness, as if it could coax a bud to bloom.
Bolkovac returned for the traditional hymn “For the Beauty of the Earth,” which was in the program as it would appear in a hymnal so everyone could sing along. He turned and applauded the audience himself with a smile when it was done.
The final three pieces of the first half included Only to Sleep by Eriks Esenvalds. This once again featured poetry as lyrics, by Sara Teasdale, and also featured a solo by soprano Kayla Cook and a smaller soprano group. The sun burst even brighter through the clouds and cascaded through the windows during this rousing piece, as if those voices commanded it so.
The first half ended with a cantata piece by Bach and then another by Theofanidis called Hear Blessings Dropping Their Blossoms Around You, the second to feature Rumi’s words. The final line “rub your eyes and look again at love with love” became a swelling, sincere persuasion, repeated until only the organ music remained and punctuated the message with its powerful sounds.
Courtesy Dan Forrest
Dan Forrest.
After a short intermission the chorus returned for the last half of the program, which featured Requiem for the Living by Dan Forrest. This piece included five movements, each with its own intention and meaning (a more in-depth discussion can be found on the composer’s website). According to Bolkovac’s notes in the program, “comfort, peace, and positivity exude from this modern masterpiece,” which was written as much for the living as for the deceased.
Each movement has its own personality and made its own mark vocally and musically. The first, “Introit — Kyrie,” felt as if it is bathed in gravitas, the soft strings joined by the depth of the organ and percussion and the addition of the Kyrie prayer. The second movement, “Vanitas Vanitatum,” felt very second act, with a sense of discombobulation and acceptance of pain as something we all must go through. Everything quieted down and smoothed out with the third movement, “Agnus Dei,” which layered more string and harmony, but with a lightness, as if relieving what was previously felt. “Sanctus,” the fourth movement, gave the audience a respite but also an exaltation. With the final movement, “Lux Aeterna,” the audience was brought firmly into the here and now.
This is probably a fitting place for full disclosure: my family and I are in the throes of mourning the sudden passing of my mother-in-law almost three weeks ago. After this loss as well as the previous losses of both of my own parents, I can safely say that grief is a pliable monster, one we can try to form into a version that suits us in the moment, but then comes back to find us in an entirely different form whenever it pleases. With so fresh a wound, I was not sure how this program was going to hit me. Without a doubt, it was a blessing. As Bolkovac himself wrote, “music is one of the gifts that has the power to keep us connected with our spiritual core so we can navigate the challenging landscape of modern life.” After the concert I walked out into that steady streaming sunlight still healing, but a little lighter, and immensely grateful.
Check out the New Haven Chorale’s website for more information about the group’s upcoming 75th anniversary season as well as their call for auditions for new members. Visit the International Festival of Arts and Ideas for a full listing of its events.