Tag Archives: Vaughan Williams

Caritas a Cappella Delivers a Mix of Ancient and Modern Gems

Review: Caritas a Cappella Ensemble @ St. Alban’s

By Perry Tannenbaum

January 19, 2025, Davidson, NC – With so many churches in the metro Charlotte area, it’s little wonder that the Queen City is fertile ground for choirs and choristers – and receptive audiences for choral music. Considering this profusion of talent and activity, as well as the total absence of Caritas A Cappella Ensemble press releases in my voluminous mailbox and the lack of catch-up info on the Caritas website, I was able to forgive myself for not having known about this organization, founded by Cathy Youngblood in 2017, until signing up for this review.

More ominous, as we entered the St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, was the elephant in the room: a spanking new grand piano in the middle of the sanctuary, standing in front of two rows of music stands where the singers would be placing their iPads and music scores. Was there somebody at Caritas HQ (if there’s more to it than the PO Box given at the website) who needed to learn the meaning of a cappella?

Thankfully, the piano was there for a delayed pre-show, so the mammoth obstacle turned out to be a blessing. For once, my wife Sue and I had arrived early enough for a Music at St. Alban’s concert to take in the prelude event, where star students from the Davidson area are given the opportunity to play for an audience and warm us up for the featured guests.

Those of us who had arrived on time for the pre-show were rewarded, while awaiting the arrival of Tianyang Chen, with a couple of delightful morsels of Brahms from his teacher, Cynthia Lawing. Once Chen had gone through his recital of pieces by Ginastera, Liszt, Brahms, and Debussy, the elephant could be moved to make way for the marquee players.

Surprises didn’t cease with the piano’s exit. Caritas artistic director Jeremy Mims entered the sanctuary in the usual way, but the Ensemble didn’t take their places behind the music stands. Instead, they encircled the audience – men in front, women at the rear of the hall – for the opening selection, “Musick’s Empire” from Triptych by Lloyd Pfautsch (1921-2003). Besides the ethereal surround sound blend, this presentation heightened the drama when Mims cued the female voices. Fittingly, the outré deployment of the Ensemble was devoted to a modern piece. It wasn’t until the singers took their places after this opening that the title of their concert, “A Capella Through the Ages,” could be fulfilled in a more orderly, chronological manner.

Fussing a bit with the printed program, replacing a couple of titles on the list with new selections and occasionally shuffling the order of performance, the concert kept to its original design, flashing back to the Baroque days of Vivaldi, Palestrina, and the Scarlattis with a nice mix of sacred and secular lyrics. Whether it’s Handel or Bach, we hear many of the mightiest works from that wondrous era, so it was nice to sample these less familiar gems.

What interested me most on the program was the predominance of more modern pieces, from the days of Bruckner, Holst and Vaughan Williams to the present day. Pieces like these, which sound surprisingly retro compared to the modern chamber and orchestral pieces we’re familiar with, have always been mainstays at Spoleto Festival USA concerts down in Charleston, SC, so I was eager to see how these performances would compare and how a North Carolina audience would react.

The composers’ names were no less intriguing and enticing. We don’t readily recognize contemporary composers Elaine Hagenberg (1979-), Kevin Memley (1971-), Eric Whitacre (1970-), and Pärt Uusberg (1986-) by their last names. As for Frank Tichelli (1958-), whose “Earth Song” was inserted after the program was printed, I was nowhere close to knowing how to spell his name when Mims announced it. “Sikelly” was my first stab. Well-matched to the slow-paced, richly-scored music, Earth’s lyric was rather simple at its core: “Oh war and power, you blind and blur. The torn heart cries out in pain. In pain. But music and singing have been my refuge, and music and singing shall be my light.”

Uniquely, the beauty of the hallelujahs later on was more like a solemn sunset than a jubilant festival. Sadly, Caritas’s enunciation was no clearer than that of multiple recordings – including one by the famed Seraphic Fire – I sampled on Spotify, which offered welcome first aid in deciphering the lovely lyrics. Consonants were often unclear, vain routinely indistinguishable from pain. And vowels! Try to hear “light” when that word pops up!

Never again will I blame myself for losing track of what a choir is singing in Latin (or any other foreign language) when I have the printed text before me. For that reason alone, Uusberg’s magical “Ōhtul” nudged “Earth Song” aside for me as the most impressive piece on the program. Since translations were appended to the program, full contentment with the performance was a simpler matter. The grand swell, as the poet’s song paddled away, was a lovely surprise after everything else – bird, little flower, and forest trees – had been silenced and lulled to sleep by the twilight. Erkki-Sven Tüür (1959-) and Arvo Pärt (1935-) will need to leave some space for this youngster on their pedestal as my favorite Estonian composers.

As for the practice of printing translations for vocal performances, a brief word. Follow the practice of most opera companies nowadays who project subtitles even when the operas are performed in English. Print the English texts with the translations for our fullest enjoyment.

“Nunc Dimitis” by Gustav Holst (1874-1934) impressed me nearly as much as the Uusberg, with solos from soprano Sarah Ochoa and tenor Nicholas Setzer. The soloists not only sang their brief solos purely, they set the stage for responses from the Ensemble at a dramatically augmented volume. Wisely, the Latin didn’t appear in the program, clearing the pathway to pleasure when we went straight to the translation.

Of course, the fullest experiences at this concert came from songs in our language that were either familiar to us or readily grasped in real time. The most enjoyable of these included Hagenberg’s joyous “Alleluia,” though it sported few more words aside from amen, and the finale that followed, “Ezekiel Saw de Wheel” as arranged by William L. Dawson (1899-1990). Most surprising of all was Vaughan Williams’ “O Mistress Mine,” from his Three Elizabethan Part-Songs, a rather frisky departure for a composer better known for the grandeur of A Sea Symphony, the anguish and majesty of Job,and the simple tragedy of Riders to the Sea.

Gerald Finzi’s “My spirit sang all day,” mercifully brief, didn’t really speak to me, and “Shenadoah,” as arranged by James Erb (1926-2014) disappointed. Crossing the “wide Missouri,” we have an inalienable right to more bass and sinew between the shores. Bypassing my personal distaste for the foundational baby-worship that pervades Christianity, the pairing of Whitacre’s “Lux Aurumque” and Memley’s “O Magnum Mysterium” were more pleasing to me in Latin, since ignoring the translations – and savoring Memley’s heavenly harmonies – was an option.

Amusingly enough, I had to adjust my attitude toward Caritas’s choice of William Billings’ “I am the Rose of Sharon” past the midway point of a largely repetitive and pedestrian performance. When the famed snippet from the Song of Solomon reached its denouement, “for, lo, the winter is past and the rain is gone,” you could look out the huge St. Alban’s windows and see that the rain really was stopping in response to these pertinent repetitions.

If you missed that, you couldn’t help but notice streaks of bright sunlight suddenly streaming across the front rows of singers. In his intro to the piece, Mims had hoped that the concluding verse would bring an end to the rain. But the power of Caritas’s incantations exceeded this extravagant hope. Repetitions and all, you won’t find me arguing with such cosmic success!

Photos by Perry Tannenbaum

Lou Harrison and the Fab Four Spark 24 Rapidfire Miniatures at Charlotte New Music Festival

Review: Charlotte New Music Festival

By Perry Tannenbaum

Partnering with UNC Charlotte and picking up prestigious sponsors such as the Knight Foundation and the NEA, the Charlotte New Music Festival continues to draw topnotch composers and musicians for an intriguing variety of workshops, concerts, and competitions. The sixth annual CNMF ran from June 19 through July 1, and I caught the last concert on the final day, which also turned out to be a competition of sorts. Hosted by festival founder and executive artistic director Elizabeth Kowalski, “Contest in the Concert of the Miniatures” presented 24 new pieces written within the space of a week. All of the pieces were performed by members of Pittsburgh’s Beo String Quartet in a wide variety of instrumental configurations, from solo to full quartet, with only two days for the players to learn the music. And just because there were no laptops, Wiimotes, Xboxes, tape loops, or pre-recorded sound, the feel of this concert was anything but retro. The event was staged behind the taproom at the Lenny Boy Brewing Co. in a warehouse ambiance further compromised by mechanical outbursts of brewing activity and spasms of a rainstorm pelting the roof.

Amid this din, I was unable to catch all of Kowalski’s introductory remarks. The audience was configured around the quartet in a roughly circular or octagonal formation two rows deep, providing seating for approximately 60 people. Wooden picnic tables supplied the octagonal component of the seating. What I did make out of Kowalski’s remarks – and from Drew Dolan, program director of the composers workshop, who spoke after the intermission – was that the audience would be voting for the winner of the Contest on their smartphones, with the announcement of the winner following shortly after the concert concluded. Whether this was exactly what happened is open to doubt, since I overheard the winning composer protesting his own victory – on the grounds that he had voted for himself 10 times. Nor could I say how diligently the 24 composers followed the suggestion that their music celebrate the centenary of Lou Harrison or the 50-year anniversary of The Beatles’ landmark album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Opening the concert, Nathan Scalise’s “A Day in Lou Harrison’s Life” addressed both prompts – or at least the title did. A duo for violin and cello, the piece leaned toward Appalachia with its pizzicatos after opening with some weird and evocative cello glisses, clearly an early contender. Other pieces that seemed to address the prompts even obliquely included Ian Wiese’s “Hard Day,” Stephen Wiegel’s “Genesis, Gamelan, and Birth,” and – a solo for viola, and another contender – Zach Davis’s “On a Melody of Lou Harrison.” Writing a quiet piece became a risky strategy at Lenny Boy if you wanted to win. Swallowed up by brewing noises, I couldn’t fully hear or judge the latter stages of Yasha Hoffman’s “Exploration” for solo violin after a variety of bowing effects, but fortune smiled a few pieces later on when Lewis Ingham’s “A Sharper Breath” for two violins and viola premiered. Violinist Jason Neukom called us all together to stand around the trio as they played, helping us. I can’t recall any previous concert where I was close enough to a violinist to see the hairs on his bow arm.

After that unique powwow, notable for the pianissimo harmonics from the other violinist, Sandro Leal Santiesteban, I found Colin Payne’s “Sullivan in Song” for viola and cello to be equally enjoyable, purposeful in its counterpoint. Yet the piece afterwards, “Cogs” by Victor Zheng, won my smartphone vote. Written for violin, viola, and cello, the piece began with a minimalist backbeat from the cello and pizzicatos from the higher strings, coalescing into a wisp of melody, with a propulsive syncopation that reminded me of Bartók quartets. Slowing things down, Chelsea Williamson’s “Portrait of a Concerto” for violin and viola was a shrewd programming placement, a little like the Barber Adagio in its melancholy. No other composition impressed me quite as much before intermission, though cellist Ryan Ash was notably effective playing eerie harmonics, some below his instrument’s bridge, in Chase Jordan’s dark and brooding “Atlantic Opalescence I.”

That and a few other pieces fell short of winning my heartiest approval due to their brevity. To cite one example, Logan Rutledge’s “Problem Child” for violin, viola, and cello sported interesting pizzicatos but ultimately too little development. A fuller architecture could be discerned in Daniel Fawcett’s “ECHOING RISE” for two violins and viola, not unlike Vaughan Williams’ A Lark Ascending but with a more insect-like busyness. Written for the same instrumentation, Tyler Waters’ “The Center of the Circle” spotlighted violist Sean Neukom amid a mist of violin harmonics. Sean figured prominently in the next two compositions that I fancied, converging effectively with Ash in “a glimpse of something passed” after composer Tim Clay launched them on separate paths. Immediately afterwards, the violist brought a nice improvisatory energy to the Davis piece. Not to be outdone, Christopher Miller’s “Experiment 625” for violin and cello had all the kinetic energy of a mad scientist’s lab, harmonious pizzicatos bending toward melody, with the violin briefly taking on a banjo’s timbre.

Concluding the program, Maya Johnson’s “Turn Off Your Mind” was one of just two new pieces written for a full string quartet, with bluegrass flavorings from the violins and the first percussive burst from Ash’s cello all evening long. Together with Williamson’s dirge-like piece and Julie Mitchell’s “Phantasm” for violin and cello – very mainstream until its outbreak of violin pizzicatos – there was evidence that the women composers on the program more readily embraced traditional forms and sounds. But with new European and Asian composers returning toward tonality, it may be argued that these feminine composers are really more au courante, while the lingering iconoclasm, electronica, and academic nerdiness that still prevail across the USA are exactly what is isolating America from the new millennium of classical music.

Don’t get me wrong. There was a discernable difference overall between the four compositions by women and the more outré works I heard from the men, but not a radical one. More memorable, as the members of the Beo Quartet acknowledged the composers strewn among the audience, was sense of community. Seated in a circle as we were, it was impossible to ignore the expressions of joy on the faces of the composers as they listened to their new works being played for the first time. Those joyous expressions remained even when the compositions weren’t their own – even when those sounds were mostly swallowed by a sea of brewing suds and the clatter of falling rain.