Keene State’s Vocal Consort and Chamber Singers performed their combined winter concert Sunday, Dec. 4 at the Redfern’s Alumni Recital Hall with a wide range of traditional and contemporary pieces in a variety of languages. The performance was divided into three acts, an opening by the Chamber Singers, the middle by the Vocal Consort, and the closing by the Chamber Singers once again.
The opening pieces were performed by seven-student Chamber Singers, director Sandra Howard, and pianist Vladimir Odinokikh. Additionally, the opening pieces acted as an ode to the holiday season with a collection of pieces by Benjamin Britten entitled ‘Ceremony of Carols’ that began with a Gregorian chant performed in Latin and followed by five songs spanning four different languages: Latin, Old English, Modern English, Scottish dialect, and German.
One of the pieces in the opening performance detailed the story of Mother Teresa, sung by junior Amelia Guarino, a member of both Chamber Singers and Vocal consort.
Howard described the experience of performing pieces in different languages.
“There are a lot of diction issues with the different languages, a lot of different rhythms, and how to put all of those words together,” Howard said.
Following Chamber Singers was Vocal Consort under the direction of Morgan Bothwell. The six-member ensemble performed pieces from the medieval, renaissance, and baroque periods.
Vocal Consort member and junior Elise Lowe described, “the music isn’t always…set in what we know today. Early Music…can be challenging because there [are] either different clefs or…different notation styles.”
Lowe added, “I found that when I was learning it, listening to recordings helps… You can listen around you more because you’re not trying to find your own notes. You can listen to see how your part fits with everyone else’s or if another part is singing a note that you come in on, it’s easier for you to pick that note out so you can then come in on the correct pitch.” Vocal Consort’s first piece, entitled “Ave Verum Corpus,” by William Byrd, was in Latin and the following pieces had a range of languages and vocal compositions from four-part to six-part.
Lowe explained that “It’s been a challenge to do six-part songs because there’s only six of us…in our individual parts…I think the audience would really appreciate that we are each getting our own time to shine per se because we each have our own part.”
Chamber Singers returned to the stage to close out the performance with a range of contemporary pieces such as Michael John Trotta’s “Great and Fiery Force,” Daniel Gawthrop’s “Sing Me to Heaven,” and Brandi Carlile’s “Crowded Table.”
Benjamin Martins can be contacted
at bmartins@kscequinox.com
