Now, even if this piece of music had none of the emotional import that comes with being a BCE standard, I’d still love it. And it’s because of one simple musical gesture: what an intro music theory textbook will call the “deceptive,” but I will call the “best,” cadence. A cadence, as you might guess from the name, is a term for the harmonic conclusion of a musical phrase. It’s the period to a musical sentence. And a deceptive cadence distinguishes itself because it sounds like it’s going back to the tonic, or harmonic basis of the piece, but then turns a corner and ends up somewhere else:

The six chord.

If this sounds completely obtuse, don’t fret; you only need to follow me enough to appreciate what will shortly become my slightly heavy-handed controlling metaphor. So. The tonic chord has three notes in it: the first (the “tonic”), third, and fifth notes of the key. The six chord, where our deceptive cadence ends up, still has the tonic and third notes, but instead of that fifth to round it out and make it sound like home, instead we get the sixth scale degree. In a tune like “My Shepherd,” the familiar tonic functions differently in the six chord, making it minor–a bit sad. And that sixth scale degree lends drama to the situation, leading our ear to yearn for that missing fifth. In “My Shepherd,” Thomson uses the deceptive cadence at the midpoint of the verses, highlighting the tension in phrases like “when I forsake His ways.” And Thomson’s trick isn’t unusual; the deceptive cadence turns up in countless songs and ballads to lend a tear-jerking harmonic “pull” to the music. You’ll hear a form of it in everything from “Loch Lomond” (“I’ll be in Scotland afore ye…”) to The Beatles’ “Yesterday” (“all my troubles seemed so far away…”).

This one musical gesture, then, can do an awful lot of emotional work even in a simple hymn setting. It hearkens sadness and longing, familiarity and nostalgia. But a deceptive cadence does one more thing–and this is where we come back around to BCE–in all its unsteadiness, it anticipates and drives us toward home and resolution. Shortly before Miguel lifted his baton, BCE President Lauren Roller welcomed and recognized our incoming artistic director, Dr. Andrew Shenton. And so Thomson’s “My Shepherd” was really a perfect musical accompaniment to the moment. With fond memories and warmest wishes for the future, we thank Miguel for seven remarkable years with the Boston Choral Ensemble. And we look forward with great excitement to making music under Andrew’s capable leadership.

“There would I find a settled rest, While others go and come / No more a stranger or a guest, But like a child at home.”

Aaron Hatley, B1

The opening and section about BCE are printed below. To see the whole article or learn more about The Voice, click here.

Voices of Reconciliation

There is perhaps no more fitting metaphor for bridging discord than voices joined in harmony—here’s how a number of choruses have become effective ambassadors of peace

by Kelsey Menehan

Ever since there has been war and conflict—which is to say, since the beginning of human existence—there has been singing. We sing to protest, to mourn, to place a salve on deep wounds, to rally for peace, to hope for a better future.

Choruses have a long history of singing for peace. The documentary film, The Singing Revolution, shown at the recent Chorus America Conference in Atlanta, provides one potent example. Between 1987 and 1991, Estonians sought to free themselves from decades of Soviet occupation by gathering in public to sing forbidden patriotic songs and to rally for independence. Hundreds of thousands turned out to sing, and this played a role in the country eventually—and peacefully—regaining its freedom.

There remain countless cataclysms and conflicts about which to raise one’s voice, and today, a number of choral ensembles exist solely to promote peace and reconciliation. Many other choruses, while their missions do not focus explicitly on “peacemaking,” have nonetheless been moved to perform for peace.

For this article, we asked choruses to tell us about a time when they felt an urgency to stage a concert centered on the themes of peace and reconciliation. Some choruses said they were prompted by specific historical events, others by violence in their own backyards, still others by the conditions of poverty and oppression that are the soil in which conflict and war take root. Their stories reveal how a simple idea can galvanize unexpected bursts of programming creativity, singer enthusiasm, and community engagement.

…

Searching for a Peaceable Kingdom

Two years ago, the war in Iraq was the issue on which presidential candidates were staking their political future. “Politics and war were on TV every day and death counts were as commonplace as poll numbers,” recalled Miguel Felipe, music director of the Boston Choral Ensemble. “Peace didn’t seem to be a word we heard often.”

Hoping to add a thoughtful response to the discussion, Felipe and the Ensemble programmed a concert that had at its core Randall Thompson’s work The Peaceable Kingdom on texts from the Bible. Interspersed between the movements of Thompson’s piece were a range of other works that commented on themes of war, death, reconciliation, and peace — Josquin des Prez’s “Absalon fili mi,” Thomas Tomkins’ “When David Heard that Absalom was Slain,” Salamone Rossi’s  “Kaddish,” Edward Elgar’s “Peace, Gentle Peace” from Coronation Ode, Op. 44, and “Look down, fair moon” by Zachary Wadsworth, winner of the Ensemble’s first commission competition.

The arc of the program tracked musical style/era, emotional content, and tempo/key relationships. “Ultimately, the audience member was taken down into the darkest emotions of the program with Thompson’s ‘The paper reeds by the brooks’ at the bottom,” Felipe said, “and lifted back through reconciliation to peace and hope with our major commission as the turning point.”

“We succeeded in stirring our audiences in ways the popular media isn’t always able to,” Felipe said. “We also blended repertoire across ages so as to illustrate timeless connections in human response to war, death, and hope.” The concert program can be downloaded at www.BostonChoral.org.

The cover of Chorus America's "The Voice", vol 33, no 4, June 2010.

Chorus America—a national association of more than 1,600 choruses, individuals, and businesses dedicated to “a dynamic and inclusive choral community”—publishes a monthly journal called The Voice. The June issue is released today and features BCE in a big way! (And check out the cover picture of BCE’s own Lindsay White and a picture of BCE alum Hyun-Gu Kang on the article’s first page!)

The cover article, called “Reaching for Artistic Excellence”, by Kelsey Menehan, begins: “No matter where you are on the road toward choral excellence, you can take steps to get better—a diverse sample of choruses tell their inspiring stories…” And  continues with profiles of eight organizations across the country:

• Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Chorale
• The Civic Chorale (Tennessee)
• The Boston Choral Ensemble
• Seattle Pro Musica
• Mystic River Chorale (Conn.)
• Providence Singers
• Young Voices of Colorado
• Berkshire Choral Festival (Mass.)

The BCE profile is below. For the complete article, visit Chorus America’s site.

The Boston Choral Ensemble: Harnessing the Power of a Mission

Among the venerable and moneyed organizations in choral-rich Boston, The Boston Choral Ensemble knew that it had to do more than just perform well to set itself apart. Since its founding nine years ago, it had become a landing spot for young grad students and those just out of undergrad who were seeking a highly challenging choral setting not affiliated with a church or university.

“The repertoire was challenging, but the polish wasn’t there,” says Miguel Felipe, in his sixth year as music director. “It became clear that the group could always reach a B+

performance, and we had difficulty hacking through that threshold.” What turned things around was a new mission, which the board and the artistic staff thrashed out over a couple of years: The Boston Choral Ensemble is an innovative chamber choir that encourages the creative expansion of the choral art by exploring the essential qualities that unite diverse traditions.

A Boston Choral Ensemble concert explores the full breadth of the choral tradition from the ancient to the contemporary, drawing connections and highlighting the contrasts. “We don’t ‘fetishize’ or put undo focus on new music,” Felipe says. “It is just part of what we do in every concert, part of the tradition.”

Having a mission that focuses on innovative performance concepts has clarified the audition process. Whereas the group once accepted practically anyone who came, it now accepts 20 percent of auditioning singers.

The first page of "Reaching for Artistic Excellence—One Chorus at a Time" in which BCE is a featured organization.

“The reason why auditions have become so competitive is that we worked hard to create a consistent artistic image,” Felipe says. “Singers know that they are not signing up for a choir that occasionally does an interesting piece. Having that clear sense of programming and drive makes membership valuable. It allows me to be more demanding in terms of artistic requirements.”

One hotly contested change was to require group members to re-audition every other year—“not to clean house, but to put action behind the idea that individual improvement and maintenance was expected,” Felipe says.

Rehearsals now emphasize the music far more than the social aspects of singing in a choir. “We do highly detailed warmups based on the repertoire,” Felipe says. “The whole ethos has become focused on performing really, really well. There’s a growing feeling in the ensemble that we are really doing important singing. We’ll party after rehearsal.”

The Ensemble also schedules regular retreats—not to be confused with extra rehearsals—where musical experts, of which there are plenty in the Boston area, talk with singers about various aspects of musicianship.

The new emphasis has meant letting go of some things. The group does less educational outreach than it once did, and recently spent thousands of dollars to buy scores of Thomas Jennefelt’s Villarosa Sequences, a seven-movement symphony for voices, with which the group opened its 2009–10 season in November.

“We had to decide what we were rallying around,” Felipe says. “What could we put our voices behind? This is our mission, so we decided we would spend money on the scores. Our group has an artistic mission as well as a programmatic mission that has attracted audience and singers. And in the end, the better singers you have, the better you will sound.”

Key Lessons

• A clear mission drives artistic improvement
• Emphasize the music more than the social aspects
• Support artistic improvement with well-structured rehearsals and retreats

This week, BCE received word that Ruth Haber, an applicant to our 2009 Commission Competition, has done the same thing! The concert was called MEDITATIONS and themed around Eastern texts set by Western composers. Her proposal from fall 2008 was to set a poem by Rumi called Where Everything Is Music.

Her new work will be premiered in one week by the West Valley College Chamber Singers, Lou de la Rosa, conducting.

The concert announcement reads like this:

The final concert of the West Valley College Chamber Singers will be a twin bill with the San Jose State University Chamber Singers … on May 7, 2010…. The concert will include performances of works by Bernstein, Brahms, Weelkes, Marenzio, and the premiere of two compositions by San Jose composers Brian Holmes and Ruth Huber.

Thanks for sharing this wonderful news, Ruth, and congratulations!

In the fall of 2009, a composer named John White submitted his materials to our competition Jury. Although he didn’t win, it seems that he couldn’t help himself! The work he’d proposed in the application—a new choral piece combining Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem How Do I Love Thee—was something he wanted too write anyway! And so he went about composing the piece anyway and sent us a copy!

The new tune, which he calls Nimrod Music is seven minutes of music inspired, at least, by our competition! How wonderful!

Thanks for sending the copy, John, and let us know when it’s premiered!

As an homage to the centuries of art inspired by the events of Holy Week, BCE wanted to share this audio clip from our Tenebræ concert. Listen below for the complete Tenebræ factæ sunt of 1938 by Francis Poulenc (1899–1963) . Read more about Poulenc here, and see the text in translation below.

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Latin
Tenebræ factæ sunt, dum crucifixissent Jesum Judæi: Et circa horam nonam exclamavit Jesus voce magna: Deus meus, ut quid me dereliquisti? Et inclinato capite, emisit spiritum.
℣: Exclamans Jesu voce magna, ait: Pater, in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum.

English
Darkness covered the earth, whilst the Jews crucified Jesus: And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice: My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? And bowing His head, He gave up the ghost.
℣: Jesus crying with a loud voice, said: Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.

Iman Habibi

Iman Habibi, BMUS, is an award-winning composer and pianist whose music has been performed by prestigious ensembles and performers such as musica intima, The Vancouver Bach Choir, DaCapo Chamber Choir, and soprano Simone Osborne; and has been workshoped by The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and The Aventa and Drosera ensembles. He has received numerous awards such as the second prize at The 2008 Vancouver Bach Choir’s national Competition for Large Choir Works for his work Erroneous Kudos and first prize for his work Black Riders at the 2009 Guelph Chamber Choir competition. His music and interviews are broadcast regularly on radios across North America, such as CBC radio 2, and WXQR. He has recently been commissioned to compose his first piano concerto for The Prince George Symphony Orchestra (PGSO). He will be appearing as the piano soloist to premiere this work with the PGSO in February 2010. He was the youngest classical composer, and the only student composer to be featured at BCScene festival in Ottawa. For the past five years, he has been performing at, and composing music for British Columbia’s most celebrated new music festival, Sonic Boom. He is currently finishing his masters degree in music composition at the University of British Columbia under the instruction of Dorothy Chang. Former teachers include Jeffrey Ryan, and Stephen Chatman.

Jocelyn Hagen

Jocelyn Hagen, a native of Valley City, North Dakota, composes music that has been described as “dramatic and deeply moving” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis/St. Paul). Her first forays into composition were via songwriting, and this is evident in her work. Her music is melodically driven, boldly beautiful, and intricately crafted. Since her graduation from St. Olaf College in 2003, Jocelyn has received over 30 commissions, 40 premieres, and 90 performances.

Jocelyn has received grants and awards from ASCAP, the American Composers Forum, Minnesota Music Educators Association, VocalEssence, the Yale Glee Club, the Lotte Lehman Foundation, the University of Minnesota, and the San Francisco Song Festival. Her commissions include the American Choral Directors Association of Minnesota, the North Dakota Music Teacher’s Association, Cantus, the St. Olaf Band, NDSU Gold Star Band, and the Copper Street Brass. She is currently Composer-in-Residence for Valley City State University, Shorter College in Rome, Georgia, as well as the group she sings in: The Singers – Minnesota Choral Artists. She founded Graphite Publishing, an online publishing company, in 2004 along with fellow composer Timothy C. Takach, and is also published by Boosey and Hawkes. Former teachers include Judith Lang Zaimont, Peter Hamlin, David Maslanka, Mary Ellen Childs, and Timothy Mahr. She completed her Masters in Composition at the University of Minnesota in 2006.

Steven Serpa

Steven Serpa came to music relatively late compared to many. He gave himself his first music lesson, a voice lesson, for his twentieth birthday. Since then he has received two bachelors degrees from the University of Rhode Island, one in vocal performance and one in musicology and a masters degree in early music performance from Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Serpa’s output is focused on vocal and chamber music. His art songs have been performed in the New England and Mid-Atlantic areas. His choral works have been taken up by churches and ensembles in the Boston and Providence areas. His music drama, Le Laüstic, based on Medieval French poetry, has been performed twice in the Boston area. A sonata he composed for solo flute, Pan Episodes, has been performed by flutists in Boston, Tennessee and recently in Alabama as part of the Mid-south Flute Association’s annual conference. Other recent works include a one-act opera based on a fable by Jean de la Fontaine, Thyrsis & Amaranth, and a work commissioned for performance at Boston University for viola and piano, Alto-fantasie … il n’y avait rien d’aussi rouge … Recently, he collaborated with North Carolina poet Jeffery Beam on Heaven’s Birds: Lament and Song, a cantata to commemorate World AIDS Day 2008 in a benefit concert for the AIDS Action Committee of Boston. He has worked under Geoffrey Gibbs and Eliane Aberdam at the University of Rhode Island, Paul Brust at Longy School of Music and is currently studying composition under Tom Cipullo in New York City.

Vahram Sargsyan, 2009

Vahram Sargsyan is an Armenian composer who has written orchestral, chamber and choral works that have been performed in his homeland, in Europe and in North America; Vahram is also active as a conductor. Born in 1981 in Yerevan, Armenia, Sargsyan studied from 1996–98 at the P. Tchaikovsky Musical College, moving to the Ashot Zohrabyan at the Yerevan Komitas State Conservatory from 1998–2003. There, he also studied conducting with Tigran Hekekyan and composition with Ashot Zohrabyan.

His music has been performed in Armenia, the UK, Germany, Austria, Belarus, Greece, Poland, Italy, Canada, as well as in the USA. His composition Luis Zvart was performed at the 6th World Symposium on Choral Music (Minneapolis, Minnesota 2002). His arrangement of Khorurd Metz (Great Mystery) is included in the Oxford University Press anthology World Carols for Choirs (2005) and has been recorded by BBC Singers.

Sargsyan has had commissions from Oxford University Press (UK), MPAW Vocal Ensemble (Germany), A.R.CO.VA. (Italy) and others. His honors include the 1st prize in the International Contest for New Choral Compositions in Petrinja, Croatia (June 2009, for Anegh Bnutiun); an award from World Armenian Congress for “Creative attainment of the Armenian contemporary composer’s art” (2009, for Mythis); a winner prize at the European Seminar for Young Composers (Aosta, Italy 2008, for Laudate Dominum); and an award in the Choral Composition Competition in Yerevan, Armenia (2006, for Tantum ergo).

Vahram Sargsyan founded the Armenian Chamber Voices in Yerevan in 2005 and has since served as its conductor.

This week marks a major milestone in ZUMIX’s life and NB thought it deserved mention and celebration! Earlier this week, ZUMIX officially opened their new 9,000-square-foot facility in a newly-renovated firehouse at 260 Sumner Street in East Boston. Excerpts from a short article are below. Pictures are here.

Be sure to stay in touch with BCE in our 2010–11 season as we announce new projects with ZUMIX and their vocal programs.

CONGRATULATIONS, ZUMIX!

New Performance Space in Formerly Vacant Firehouse

Mayor Thomas M. Menino joined city officials and community members in celebrating the new home of local after-school music education organization, ZUMIX, in a newly renovated firehouse at 260 Sumner Street in East Boston.

The new 9,000-square-foot facility benefited from $4.6 million in renovations over the past five years, and boasts a performance stage, several soundproof rehearsal rooms, a recording studio, and a radio station. The renovated firehouse, which was vacant for more than 30 years, replaces former ZUMIX headquarters on nearby Maverick Street.

…

“As a community we should be tremendously proud of this wonderful transformation as ZUMIX and the East Boston Community Development Corporation have worked tirelessly with the City, community groups, and funding partners to turn this building into a state-of-the-art performing arts center for Boston’s young people to enjoy,” said Mayor Menino. “This is a great example of how strong partnerships at the community level bring new energy to our neighborhoods. I want to thank ZUMIX for helping to transform the lives of our residents by providing access to the arts in a unique setting.”

ZUMIX is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) cultural organization dedicated to youth empowerment and community development through music and the arts. Their after-school program gives young people from all neighborhoods of Boston alternative ways to express their creativity while building cultural understanding.

© Citybiz

BCE’s Commission Competition is currently one of the largest competitions of its type in the US. Last year, for example, the Competition received over 80 applications from around the globe. Since beginning in 2007, nearly 200 composers have entered the competition and scores have been received from every continent except Africa and Antarctica (we’re not holding our breath on that last one!).

Every applicant is competing for a commission and prize which was $1,300 this year. To enter, composers send three sample scores, a short bio, recordings (optional), and a proposal for how they might add to the concert’s programming concept.

Applications are digitized and made available to our jury. Members in 2009 were:

• Dr. Miguel Felipe, BCE’s Music Director
• Mr. Christopher Nickelson, BCE’s Assistant to the Music Director
• Dr. Andrew Shenton, Professor at Boston University, conductor
• Mr. Andy Vores, Professor at Boston Conservatory, composer
• Ms. Megan Workmon, BCE’s singer elected by the membership

In our next post, we’ll introduce you to our 2010 winner: Vahram Sargsyan. If you’re curious now, though, check out the press release from December 2009 when we announced Mr. Sargsyan as our winner.