Author: Jon Hardy

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National Sacred Honor Choir Performs at Carnegie Hall

As students returned back from break last weekend, one group of students did not look rested, though perhaps some of them looked rejuvenated.  College Choir spent this past spring break riding in a tour bus and performing in churches from Pennsylvania to Virginia and back.  From gospel music flash-mobs in King of Prussia Mall to Carnegie Hall, the College Choir generally was described as a rewarding experience by participants.

“Overall I felt that this tour was one where the choir connected the most with both each other and the music,” said senior Heather Todd, afterward, this being her third tour with College Choir.  “Our group devotional times became incredibly personal and through sharing of our connections to the text it brought us closer as a group.”  The sense of community by working and sharing together was not limited to music and spiritual growth, however.

Courtesy of media.npr.org
Courtesy of media.npr.org

According to graduate assistant Kelly Van Kirk, “Choir members stepped up, above and way beyond the call of duty all throughout tour.”  One particular situation arose in Philadelphia, PA where the choir was singing at 10th Presbyterian Church.  After some an afternoon of free time in the city, the choir went to the church to unload the trailer with equipment and risers and rest.  “Dr. Johnson had mentioned a mandatory nap time and we were super excited!”  said Todd.  But the van with the trailer broke down a mile from the church, stranded with all of the equipment.  Van Kirk described the experience, “I had to ask people who were short on sleep, had been wandering the city and were expecting a time of rest to skip that rest and carry hundreds of pounds of robes and risers a mile to the church.  I felt terrible, but right away a group jumped up and said, ‘We’ll go.’ I was shocked.”  A member of the group added, “A couple people would trade off every couple of blocks and we managed to get everything back in time for the concert.”  “No one complained for the rest of tour,” said Todd. “We met the worst it could be and we got through it together!”

The climax of the tour was the performance on Sunday afternoon at Carnegie Hall strengthened by the National Sacred Honor Choir.  There were rehearsals for several days before the performance with the group of Christian college students, community members, and students at private Christian schools from the greater New York City area.  Beyond the weekend of preparation and fellowship, the performance itself was agreed to be a memorable experience.  “The hall was amazing!” said graduate student Elizabeth Martindale.  “You could say something, hear it bounce off the wall behind you, go out over the audience and come back from the balconies.”  Despite being a Sunday afternoon, the hall was fairly full, according to Van Kirk.  “I was worried because of the time and day, but there were almost 2,000 people in the audience.”  … “I received really meaningful comments, from the high school students especially,” said Van Kirk who was in charge of most of the New York weekend.  “I think we accomplished our goal of showing the younger singers what a joy it can be to make music for God in this kind of way.”

The College Choir’s home concert is Friday at 7:30 PM in the Wesley Chapel.

 

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National Sacred Honor Choir Prepares for Upcoming Tour

The majority of music majors were out of town for pre-tour concerts in Buffalo and Syracuse this weekend, leaving the music buildings dark and empty. “A musician learns with each performance that which cannot be taught in rehearsal,” says Dr. Brandon Johnson, director of choral activities and recent recipient of the Horne-Blanchard chair here at Houghton. These performances before the “real” tour serve as a check-up for the choir to see what work still needs to be done.

This year the College Choir will be touring from the 27th of February to the 9th of March through the mid-Atlantic states, performing in states along the east coast from NY to Virginia, ending with the concert in Carnegie Hall.

College_Choir“It is part of our mission to share the Good News with people,” said Dr. Johnson. “It is not enough for us to create beautiful music; we also need to share it.”

Most of the performances on tour are in churches with a few concert halls dotting the schedule. Every year the choir receives multiple letters from attendees telling of how the music touched them. “On an educational side,” said Johnson, “we learn the beautiful nuances of the repertoire that can only be achieved through the heightened awareness of performance.” Before each concert, the choir gathers and discusses any new meanings revealed in pieces by the audience’s response or the way certain voices blended to give emphasis to a different word or phrase, lending a new perspective to music the choir has been working on for months.

The flagship performance for this tour is of course the concert in Carnegie Hall. “It’s huge for our visibility as a school,” said 2nd year graduate student Christopher Olsen, choir manager. “Houghton faculty have performed in the small-halls in Carnegie before, but this may be the first time the Houghton name has been in the main hall.”

The College Choir will be joined at Carnegie Hall by members of the Men’s and Women’s Choir, singers from Roberts Wesleyan, a chamber choir from Liberty University, in addition to choirs from several Christian high schools for the performance, together making up the National Sacred Honor Choir. The ensemble, comprising well over 200 people, will rehearse for four days in at Hawthorne Gospel church in northern New Jersey, spending nights at a nearby Salvation Army camp.

Graduate student Kelly Vankirk, coordinator of the National Sacred Honor Choir, spoke with me about her involvement. “It is extremely busy, but it’s a huge honor to be singing such great, spiritually rich music in prestigious hall. We are bringing together Christian choirs from all over the northeast, some from even farther away. One of the goals of our time together is to help the younger singers, and ourselves, to see the context of faith and music together.”

Because of the Carnegie concert, several music professors other than Dr. Johnson will be traveling with the choir and will be giving masters’ classes for groups of advanced high school students before several concerts.This type of teaching serves to advertise for the college’s programs and has been done to a limited extent on past tours, but never to the extent reached this year with Professors Davies, Hijleh, Hutchings, and Newbrough all traveling with the choir.

 

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Europa Galante Performs at Wesley Chapel

Last Monday night at 7:30 the Houghton community was audience to a rare night of Baroque music courtesy of twice-Grammy-nominated period ensemble Europa Galante. Period-appropriate performance practice is a matter of involved study. Ensembles reviving Renaissance and Baroque music in period-appropriate performances have grown in popularity since the second World War. Despite interest falling off slightly since the 1990s, they now fit in with the mainstream of classical music.

Artist_SeriesEuropa Galante was created by their director, Fabio Biondi, for the purpose of performing and reviving works from the Italian Baroque and early Classical period. With the Fondazione Santa Cecilia, Bondi and Europa Galante have worked to rediscover 18th century Italian operas by almost forgotten composers. They are one of the most widely acclaimed and awarded early music ensembles currently and have performed in La Scala in Milan, Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York.  In fact, their next concert following the Houghton concert was in Carnegie Hall.

In a previous interview with Dr. Stephen Plate, director of the Greatbatch School of Music, about this year’s Artist Series concerts, he expressed his excitement at having an internationally-renowned group perform at Houghton and fulfill one of the goals of the Artist Series concerts, which is to bringing to Houghton performances not often found in western New York, much less Allegany county.

Their program Monday included Vivaldi’s Four Seasons concertos as well his oboe concerto in G. They played a similar program at Carnegie on Tuesday. “It has been so long since I have heard music like this!” said graduate organ/collaborative-piano major William Strydhorst. The selection is unique in period repertory for being a programmatic work, an instrumental piece based on a poem or story rather than preset form, over a hundred years before it became common practice. Their distinctiveness as well as the driving rhythms characteristic of Vivaldi’s music and characteristic Italian lines have ensured that these pieces have endured in the concert repertory for centuries. For some listeners, however, nothing is quite the same as hearing them performed on instruments they were made to be played on, making for a more accurate production of the music and enabling listeners to hear the music as the composer himself may have, or as near as can be had three hundred years later.

Europa Galante has been known for their performances of Vivaldi since their founding in 1990, recently receiving Grammy nominations for recordings of Vivialdi Concerti and Bajazet and most recently receiving the Diaspason D’Or for Vivaldi’s opera L’Oracolo. Monday’s performance displayed some of the reasons for these nominations.  Fabio Biondi’s magical solos, particularly in “Winter,” mixed with the accompaniment of the ensemble. Biondi started performing internationally when he was 12, receiving continual acclaim since then.

The next Artist Series concert will be on March 29th featuring Houghton alumni Robert Joubert in the recital hall.

 

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Houghton Pops Cancels Activities for Semester

www.houghton.edu

Two weeks ago Houghton Pops Orchestra (HPO) director Nathaniel Efthimiou (class of ’14) informed the members of the Houghton Pops orchestra that he and the board had decided to cancel the concert scheduled for the 22nd of this week. The performance planned for next semester is still planned for; however, there will be no performances by HPO this semester. “We simply didn’t have the resources or personnel this semester,” said Efthimiou concerning the decision.

HPO has faced a number of challenges this semester which, in the end, proved to be too much for the orchestra to overcome. One reason given by Efthimiou for the cancellation this semester was the music the group was forced to choose. “Our budget this semester was zero dollars,” said HPO president Ian Love, senior. “We had to use scores borrowed from the Philharmonia library,” said senior clarinettist Toni Bliemeister. “With the size of our group we just couldn’t pull some of them off.  And most of it just isn’t us.  It’s not music HPO should be playing.” As a club, HPO is still in the “provisional” stage, making SGA funding requests somewhat unclear. Next semester, however, they are scheduled to be approved as an official club. Orchestra members are hopeful this will allow the club to put on a more cohesive and accessible concert.

Another issue causing the concert cancellation is the extremely small size of the orchestra this semester.  “We have more cellos than violins this year,” reported one member. Other commitments and schedule conflicts have made it difficult or impossible for past members to participate.  Some former members are student teaching or studying abroad while others simply do not have time.  “With the musical this semester and everything else I just didn’t have time,” said cellist Chad Sell, sophomore, who starred in the HMTP production of The Drowsy Chaperone earlier this semester.  Efthimiou also had other commitments which took away from HPO, including conducting the pit orchestra for a musical as well as conducting pieces for composition students’ recitals.  Many other members of the group were also involved in these productions, leaving little to no time for them left for HPO.

Members are hopeful about next semester, however. “Canceling this semester was sad, but the right choice. Next semester will be better, though, with new music and without Christmas Prism to take so much time at the end of the year,” said Bleimeister. When asked to comment on plans for next semester, Efthimiou replied that, “The HPO board and I are taking time to explore new ways by which the success of the orchestra can be ensured so that future productions by our members are of the highest possible level. There is no reason to worry about the health of the Houghton Pops.”

 

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Rastrelli Quartet Performs for Houghton Artist Series

This past Friday the Wesley Chapel was filled with a moderately sized but enthusiastic audience to hear the Rastrelli Cello Quartet, an ensemble of four Russian cellists who have toured the world and received much critical acclaim in the 12 years since their creation. Their performance here several years ago left a strong impression on the community. According to former music faculty Dr. Robert Galloway who organized Artist Series concerts in the past, “[They] were a tremendous hit;… and I had students begging me to bring them back.” The Rastrelli Quartet’s repeat performance was certainly not a disappointment and had the audience cheering, begging for an encore which the performers generously provided.

The quartet members were equally pleased to be coming back to Houghton. “The second time back in this beautiful region feels like home,” said Kira Kraftzoff, the group’s artistic director.  “In Russia, young people go to the classical music concerts before going to clubs.  Seeing college students at concerts is wonderful.” They loved not just the audience but the hall, “We’ve played all over the world and this is one of our favorite halls to play in.  You have one of the 5 best stages in the world.”

Courtesy of http://www.1erang.nl
Courtesy of http://www.1erang.nl

“They truly are world class,” said Dr. Stephen Plate, Director of the Greatbatch School of Music who is now in charge of the Artist Series as well. The Irish Times of Dublin says of them, “…each is a virtuoso in his own right, and together they play with a sense of musical purpose and personal camaraderie that is infectious.” Indeed, among their members the quartet possesses numerous awards, honors, and contest prizes and their technical proficiency is truly incredible. However the most inspiring part of their playing is their unity and the deep passion they express in their performances. Whether a tarantella, tango, swings, classical or opera arias, Rastrelli handles all genres with energy and masterful interpretation.

“The artist series is about performances which are otherworldly,” said Plate about his vision of the Artist Series concerts in my interview with him, “They are to inspire us to think larger than we are.” While classical concerts will still be the primary focus as they have been in the past the broader goal is to bring in world-class performers in any genre not easily accessible in Allegany county. “Artists come in all different shapes and sizes… I hope to bring in some excellent jazz performers among other less represented events.” The repertoire of the Rastrelli Cello Quartet is ideal to this goal of a broader definition of “artist.” Their program on Friday contained opera excerpts, arrangements of folk music of various kinds, and modern and jazz music, all the arrangements exquisitely done by the quartet’s own Sergio Drabkin.  “It’s not about ‘classical’ vs. ‘jazz’ vs. ‘popular,’” said Kraftzoff. “What are these anyway? Just names. 150 years ago it wasn’t ‘classical’ music, it was just… music. For me it is simply good music versus bad music whether ‘jazz,’ ‘classical,’ or ‘popular.’”

The next Artist Series event is pianist Ning An, who will perform January 24th.

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Houghton Pops Orchestra Ushers in Third Year

Courtesy of Jon Hardy
Courtesy of Jon Hardy

The Houghton Pops Orchestra (HPO), birthed in 2011, was the dream of organist Robert Martin (class of ’13). The model of a popular-music orchestra was new at Houghton and finding the right spot for such an ensemble required unflappable determination on the part of the founders and was a matter of some discussion in the CFA and the SGA, who regulate student clubs. The first concert, “Heart of the Highlands,” was a kind of a trial run which the orchestra managed to pull off with little time and almost no money. Most of the funding for sheet music, venue and recording fees, not to mention the signature bagpipes, was paid out of pocket by orchestra members, Robert Martin himself, and a few generous supporters. Fortunately for the future of HPO the concert was a smashing success.

“I am obsessed with Celtic music,” said Martin, “I thought it would be a great place to start with a new orchestra, seeing as it is music that is generally liked by and accessible to a wide variety of people.”  That motto, “likable and accessible” are the watchwords of HPO. Current HPO conductor Nathaniel Efthimiou (Music, ‘14), commenting on his plans for the ensemble says, “…[I] hope that HPO can be a place where anybody can come and have a good time making music together. Music is one of those things that can bridge the walls we set up with each other and I think HPO can help in building up our Houghton community, in the breaking down of those barriers.”

Music majors make up a large portion of the performers in HPO, but their ranks are swelled by students from numerous other departments: Communication, Computer Science, Education, English, Philosophy, Physics, Theology, just to name a few. Attendance at the concerts has also been diverse drawing large numbers of community members and faculty and staff in addition to students.  Music brings Houghton students from all over campus to strive for excellence together in a way not otherwise experienced.

Part of this goal is accomplished by the music itself. Repertoire is chosen by the conductor based on a theme he has in mind, such as Celtic music for Robert Martin or John Williams film music for Kevin Dibble (BMus ’11 and MMus ’13), and what sheet music can be purchased with the club’s funds. Within this framework, however, is the willingness to take on pieces or cut out pieces based on the makeup of the orchestra and the ability of the members. Enjoyable, recognizable and catchy music for both the listener and the performer goes a long way toward an enjoyable rehearsal and concert.

With the first concert of the year several months away on November 22nd, the orchestra members and their conductor have a long road ahead of them. If the past is any indication however, it promises to be one filled with insanity and laughter, friendship, struggles and triumph, Purple and Gold and bagpipes.