We started off the holidays right – a most enjoyable concert attended by PJ, just-arrived EPG, and me. This was the Phoenix Chorale’s Christmas concert – at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Phoenix on Saturday evening, December 20.
Some reasons for attending:
- We've been big fans of the Phoenix Chorale for quite a while (see for example, this discussion of perhaps my most favorite concert).
- We know or have sung with several current and former members; also, director Charles Bruffy conducted portions of this Chanticleer event.
- The concert featured Christmas music arrangements by Ola Gjeilo – we like his stuff, he is a regular arranger-composer for the Phoenix Chorale, plus he married our former Choral Union conductor.
- EPG had identified Gjeilo’s music earlier this year via youtube or however (per his own instincts, no recommendation from us, a neat more-than-coincidence in terms of overlapping taste).
- This group is really good. There's a reason they've already won two Grammy awards. Entirely a cappella performance, constant completely exposed lines with nowhere to hide unless the singers are just nailing the notes. Which they do.
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| Yakking with Ola, post-concert. |
Gjeilo did a Q&A before the concert – quite interesting to hear him discuss the challenges of coming up with fresh arrangements for songs that have been arranged literally thousands of times. (Occasionally we could remember snippets of his thought process as we listened to the concert. But mostly we just listened.)
There’s something about sitting there with your wife and son – in a darkened church – every seat taken, everyone entirely focused on the performance – listening to Christmas music – especially the familiar-warm carols! – the music moves and floats above and around and through the church – in addition to appreciating the present one cannot help recalling other times and places and singers with these same lovely, reverent songs across the decades.
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| Who knew Christina Rosetti (of pre-Raphaelite eminence) wrote the lyrics for the so-lovely "In the Bleak Midwinter?" |
The effect is pretty powerful, and builds as we go along.
By the time we get to the closing/climax of the concert – four Gjeilo arrangements of familiar Christmas carols – it's of course difficult to use words to describe this portion but EPG was kind enough to find the audio tracks for these songs that very night (very nice online versions, very similar to what we heard at the concert). So I’m going to post two of the songs here (I added a photo or two to support posting the audio tracks via youtube; this is a common method but new for me, and I should re-post later with more photos, or not).
First song: “
Away in a Manger” – all in all a pretty simple arrangement (if anything like this can be considered so). But Gjeilo enhances the melody line immeasurably by adding some gorgeous/wistfulness-inducing movement beneath it (via beautiful mostly hummed chord progressions). I think it’s just fantastic:
Next was my clear-cut favorite of the evening -
The First Nowell. Very similar technique via the use of the underlying chord progressions. But the soprano soloist’s descant line (if I'm using that term correctly) at the very beginning foreshadows much to come. Listen for it against the male soloist as he starts into the second phrase of verse two. Verse three might be (OK it definitely is) my favorite – Gjeilo alters the melody (sung by the sopranos) ever so slightly – the men hum below (a basso continuo effect I think), the alto line moves so-warmly against the soprano-melody, then the solo soprano descant lifts and floats as the verse proceeds. . . after the “chorus” section of this verse three I was actually pretty worried that the song might be ending - doesn't it sound like it might? But to our relief Gjeilo gives us verse four - entrusting the melody to the soprano soloist (with plenty else going on in the other voice parts)! Hard to describe the effect in the church that eve as all these song-elements float around and enchant us, the oft-ethereal female voices evoke the 1st Christmas angel-singers about which the carol is written after all, the concert is winding down, memories flicker, and at that point the audience, certainly me, was let’s say emotionally ready, or vulnerable, or something, for just this kind of Christmas-song-moment – well, see what you think:
[And note that the arrangement returns full circle to the solo soprano descant at the very end.]
Chorale Christmas concerts always end with a crowd sing-along of
Silent Night - my little wife's favorite - everybody sings and this was very lovely and I think of many things including David Clark Isele's beautiful ND Glee Club arrangement and Veronica Dockendorf Gales earnestly singing this with her grandchildren on the St. Joe hill farm 50+ years ago (including original German
Stille Nacht verses once Sister Doris had taught these to we then grade-schoolers).
After chatting a while with singers and composer, we three moved onto a fine and quite late dinner, with thorough concert-rehash, at the St. Francis on Camelback Road. And EPG (our chauffeur for the evening) played these very tunes for us in the car, all the way home. Which was important and good because the replay for this sort of thing is best commenced in the exact moment.
Twas yet another fine+ event.
Early this year I fell into a very pleasant habit of working at the piano keyboard. But this came at the expense of time spent at the computer keyboard - which is my only avenue to posting things here. (And yes, I was using our newish electronic piano - the Steinway is disabled pending major reno. But it was still very pleasant, trust me.)
We had a sparkling turnout ourselves, with some of we locals augmented by Patrick and Kerry - both in AZ for fine (and somewhat overlapping) visits, and POC's brother Mike and GF Lisa - also in AZ for a visit, timed in part for the next day's ASU-ND game in Tempe.
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