But there I sat in my pew at Brophy Chapel on Sunday, totally unprepared.   You cannot be prepared for the experience of “Darkness and Light.”  One compelling piece of music after another reaches somewhere deep inside you and both pokes and caresses your soul with the amazing artistry that is the hallmark of the Phoenix Chorale, with an OMG! gorgeous new composition as the highlight of this stunning program of choral music.

“Darkness and Light” was a fitting title for a program full of juxtapositions  that stretched you in every emotional and spiritual direction.  It was fire and water.  Love and heartache.  Joy and sorrow.  Tenderness and brutality.  Conflict and peace.  Fear and comfort.  Death and survival.  East and West.  Tradition and mysticism.  Sensuality and solitude.  Dissonance and harmony.  Huge swells of luscious chords and haunting bass drone or repetitive chant.  Sound that filled every inch of the room and notes rendered with an almost imperceptible whisper.  Tears running down my face and an almost irrepressible urge to jump up from my seat and burst into joyful applause.   Exhaustion and exhilaration.  It was an experience best summed up by a phrase  my significant other used years ago to describe a Chorale concert:  ”I am as a jellied mass…”

There are no words to convey this experience, but those found in the program notes and text offer a glimpse that might allow you to imagine the beauty of the music they inspired.  There is music set to poetry of Rumi in honor of a wedding anniversary:  “May this marriage have a fair face and a good name, an omen as welcomes the moon in a clear blue sky.”  There is music set to poetry based on the Orthodox wedding service:  “Let her now tenderly spread her bridal veil…And he listens.”  There is music honoring MLK:  “Sleep, sleep tonight, and may your dreams be realized.”  A child’s prayer honoring schoolchildren slain by a gunman:  ”Welcome, Jesu — Deep in my soul forever stay.”  A song for a young woman killed in an accident:  “May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”  A lullaby in which a father comforts his child frightened by the sounds of gunfire: ”It’s just the drums of a new music.”

And then there was new music — literally.  Sunday’s concert featured the world premiere of  “Dark Night of the Soul,”  the Chorale’s composer-in-residence Ola Gjeilo‘s new piece for choir, piano and strings.  The text of St. John of the Cross is powerful juxtaposition itself — of  his experience of heavenly visions while enduring barbaric conditions in prison, and his poetry of the spiritual journey from earthly constraints to communion with God — “Ah, the sheer grace!”   The music compounds the power of his words by contrasting percussive piano accompaniment with melodic strings and a broad band of choral sound, all surging and retreating with cinematic drama.  It was music that had my friends and I sharing glances and muttering “Oh my God…”  I have a feeling this piece will gain familiarity way beyond the world of choral music;  I look forward to seeing the cinematography that can do it justice.

Fortunately, this weekend offers second and third chances for this once-in-a-lifetime experience:  Trinity Cathedral on Saturday night, American Lutheran Church in Sun City on Sunday afternoon.  Don’t miss it.  You know it will be good.   Be prepared.  Read the program notes and texts.   Bring a hankie.

by Loral Deatherage, Phoenix Chorale Board Chair

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DARKNESS & LIGHT

February 27, 2010 – Saturday evening at 7:30 pm
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral
100 W. Roosevelt St., Phoenix – map
*KBAQ 89.5 FM Pre-Concert Talk starts at 6:30 pm

February 28, 2010 – Sunday afternoon at 3:00 pm
American Lutheran Church
17200 Del Webb Blvd., Sun City – map

Here’s the repertoire for these concerts:

With A Lily in Your Hand - Eric Whitacre

This Marriage – Eric Whitacre

Village Wedding – Sir John Tavener

Lullaby from “The Garden of Paradise” - Shawn Crouch

A Child’s Prayer – James MacMillan (Cassandra Ewer, soprano / Danya Tiller, soprano)

MLK – words and music by U2, arr. Bob Chilcott (Andrew De Valk, tenor)

Song for Athene – Sir John Tavener

Dark Night of the Soul - Ola Gjeilo (World premiere; Ola Gjeilo, piano / Alison Chaney, soprano / Michelle Mitchell, violin / Laura Speck, violin / Allyson Wuenschel, viola / Clara Lee, cello)

Noche oscura del alma – Carlos Surinach

Nocturnes – Morten Lauridsen (Joshua Hillmann, piano)

And don’t forget!  Check out the KBAQ 89.5 FM Pre-Concert Talk — only at Trinity Cathedral on February 27 — which starts at 6:30 p.m. and takes place in Atwood Hall.

Buy tickets here.

We are also presenting a special performance featuring Ola Gjeilo with special guest, Arizona saxophonist Ted Belledin. The concert, on February 26, features the two musicians in a duet creating new music, completely improvised on the spot, and in the stylistic vein of improvisers like Keith Jarrett and Jan Garbarek. The hauntingly beautiful music will be just as informed by classical and world music as by jazz and unlike a lot of free-improv jazz, it will be melodic and unabashedly lyrical. You can see a preview of the concert below.

Also, join us on facebook and play our Get-to-Know Ola Gjeilo Game. Each Monday and Wednesday there will be a question posted about Ola. The first person to answer the question correctly will win that round. The answers will be posted the next day (on Tuesday and Thursday). We will keep track of the winners of each round of questions and at the end of the game in late March, the person with the most points will win a sur-prize package. www.facebook.com/phoenixchorale

by Brittany Westcott, Phoenix Chorale Marketing Intern

Scavenger Hunt participants looking over their answers with Stacy Bertinelli of KBAQ.

So, the First Ever First Friday Scavenger Hunt was a big success!  We had a lot of fun putting this event together and watching it unfold.  Everyone was talking about it in the weeks leading up to last Friday and I couldn’t believe how many people had heard about it.  It was our opening event of the season and we gave away lots of cool door prizes, got to hang out with our friends at KBAQ, and made lots of new friends — including some zombies.  I had heard about the Zombie Lurch a couple of days before so I was prepared (and a little scared because I DO NOT like zombies).  Luckily for me, they were nice zombies.

Scavenger Hunt answer boards

In the end, the Scavenger Hunt proved to be pretty difficult.  I’m sure many of you are dying to know the answers, so here they are (we promise to make it a little easier next year!):  Scavenger Hunt Answers.

The Grand Prize Winner is Kristi Maekawa.  Kristi’s Grand Prize Package included: 2 Season Tickets to the Phoenix Chorale, a one-night stay at The Clarendon Hotel, gift certificates to MADE Art Boutique, dinner at Cheuvront’s, a KBAQ CD Box Set, and a Phoenix Chorale CD Box Set.

(l to r) Zombie, Jon Town, Zombie, Zombie, Sterling Beeaff, Jenna De Valk

Door prizes included KBAQ t-shirts, hats, CDs, Phoenix Chorale CDs and concert tickets, a gift certificate to Portland’s Restaurant, and free coffee from Fair Trade Cafe.  Everyone that attended the event received a free MP3 download of “Phoenix,” a new work premiered by the Chorale earlier this year and written by our Composer-in-Residence Ola Gjeilo.  Thanks goes to all of our sponsors for helping make this event happen.

Special thanks to our friends at KBAQ – Sterling Beeaff, Katrina Becker, Jon Town, and Stacy Bertinelli – for their help in putting this event together.

To see more photos from the First Ever First Friday Scavenger Hunt, click here.

(r to l) Ola Gjeilo, Beth Livingston-Hakes, David Lubeck and Joy Lubeck.

In late April I had the great pleasure of having a new work of mine, called Phoenix, premiered by the Phoenix Chorale in downtown Phoenix and Paradise Valley. The piece was commissioned by Mrs. Joy Lubeck on behalf of the Chorale; she was the winner of a silent auction last year, in which she submitted the highest bid for the work, which I donated to the choir. The performance was wonderful, as it always is with the Chorale. I wasn’t able to attend any rehearsals before the performances, but I felt completely relaxed and confident that they would do a great job with it. That’s what’s so great about working with these guys; you know they will always meet or exceed your expectations.

Desert landscape of Arizona

The work was inspired by my first trip to Phoenix the year before, when I drove from LA with a friend of mine and saw the desert for the first time. It had a strong impact on me, and I was so touched by the friendliness of everyone in Phoenix. So the piece was really more about Phoenix and the desert than about the text, which was a simple Agnus Dei text in Latin, chosen for it’s many open vowels more than perhaps the actual meaning of the words; it was a perfect vehicle for the symphonic sounding music I wanted to express through the choir. Using the Agnus Dei text for such a purpose is of course nothing new; Barber used it for his choral arrangement of the timeless Adagio for Strings, and someone also mashed Elgar’s wonderful Nimrod from the Enigma Variations up with the same words.

The Phoenix Chorale performing at Trinity Cathedral

Happy with the way everything worked out, we decided to auction off another piece of mine not yet written, for next year. The winner of the 2nd auction was Ms. Donna Corcoran, and her commission on behalf of the Chorale will be performed during Spring of 2010.

This blog entry is really about the Phoenix Chorale, but let me continue for a bit with one of my main passions outside of music; the art of Pixar.

A photo I took of my favorite visual artist Dale Chihuly's installation at the Desert Botanical Garden.

I am probably one of the biggest non-animator Pixar fans on the planet. The animation studio that has released an unbroken string of commercial and artistic triumphs, starting with Toy Story and continuing, hopefully, with Up this summer, has an uncanny ability to connect with massive audiences every time they release a new movie. This is a complete anomaly in Hollywood, and no other studios have come close to replicating this. DreamWorks have tried, by attempting to give people what they ‘want’, but more through formulaic stories and pop culture references instead of stories with heart and originality. But Brad Bird, Pixar’s perhaps foremost director (The Incredibles, Ratatouille) insists that there’s no great secret behind Pixar’s unprecedented success. He says, ‘It’s really pretty simple; everyone here loves films, and they just want to make something that they themselves want to see’.

I think he’s absolutely right, and that this applies just as much to music as it does to film making; To me, it’s essential that, given that most people in the music business love music in the first place, we compose and perform music that we really want to hear ourselves. It sounds like a given, but it turns out more often than not, it isn’t. That this is music I would put on my iPod and enjoy listening to over and over again. Can we say that about all the music that we write and perform, or do we let other factors determine too much what music we end up focusing on? I do think so, and I believe that’s part of the reason the classical music business is in some trouble at the moment. For instance, quite often, musicians and ensembles will perform pieces by composers they think should be performed, simply because few others know or play their music, or because it is historically significant, no matter whether this music actually is something they really love and that will give the audience an amazing, transporting experience.

Phoenix Chorale singer Ryan Garrison and Ola Gjeilo

I believe Phoenix Chorale’s success is related to all of this. The choir, with their conductor Charles Bruffy, has released a number of CDs (often in collaboration with the Kansas City Chorale) of strong music that they believe in, and that seems to connect with audiences. Which is also why the Chorale has enjoyed back-to-back Grammy wins and nominations recently, and cemented its position as one of the premier ensembles of any kind in the world. They are very discerning about what they choose to perform, and I think that also contributes to the wonderful energy of the group.

Bluegrass band Fire Ridge

In the most recent Phoenix Chorale concert I had the pleasure to attend, they performed mainly spirituals and bluegrass music, accompanied by a bluegrass band called Fire Ridge. The audience was clearly enjoying themselves, as did the choir, who seemed to have the time of their life. And I think the key wasn’t that they were doing cross-over music or trying to be more commercial by performing something non-classical. It was that they performed something that they loved and were thrilled to communicate with their audience.

Add this to the Phoenix Chorale’s vocal artistry and inimitable conductor, it’s no surprise that they’re the only American choir to release albums with a major British label or that they are adored by the Grammy juries.

– Ola Gjeilo (Manhattan, NY)

**You can read more about Ola Gjeilo on his website: www.olagjeilo.com
**See photos from the “Amazing Grace” concerts at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral here and at Camelback Bible Church here.

In addition to 2 gorgeous versions of “Amazing Grace,” “Angel Band,” “I Saw the Light,” “I’ll Fly Away” and many more — the audience heard the world premiere of composer Ola Gjeilo’s piece, “Phoenix” and the musical stylings of bluegrass band Fire Ridge. At intermission, audiences were treated to 50 years of our history in a display in Atwood Hall.

Check out photos from last night’s concert here.

You still have two chances to hear this concert! Today at 3pm (Camelback Bible Church) and next Sunday at 3pm in Sun City (American Lutheran Church). Get your tickets at www.phoenixchorale.org.

–Jen Rogers