San Francisco Classical Voice

To witness these young women getting through an hour and a half of almost constant singing with such professional results simply amazed. No slips at all in their ensemble work, radiance of timbre was typical. The only exception was when the top sopranos had to lift into the vocal heights. There, the tone sometimes turned toward the “English hoot,” as it's commonly known. But to get through all of that, 14th- to the 21st-century art music, with such refinement, including forays into pretty good Finnish and Czech as well as English, Spanish, French and Latin, was simply stunning. No wonder the various Ancora vocalists have been winning competitions for years. It all attests to the craftsmanship and clarity of founding conductor Geary. (He, however, conducted from his scores, the naughty boy.)

Many styles were touched, from the rather florid Gregorian Chant of “O Virgo” to the avant-garde forays of Macha, Winges and Kostiainen. Macha's folk setting was quite mild in its advances, a bit like the adventurous pieces of Bohuslav Martinu. But Winges' charming, if slightly mad, collage “Moon Dance” proved the most fun of all.

It sort of demands that one pay full attention throughout since anything can happen in the text and music. Winges employs a multitude of poetic fragments from various writers in differing languages, all having to do with the Moon. Most are abstract. For instance, “cheese / no door / no more.” Make what you can of that!

In addition, Winges calls for an assortment of vocal noises: hissing, sucking sounds, moments of speaking on pitch, and such. It amounts to a sort of fantasy scherzo that must be a major challenge but fun to sing and very effective. While not nearly so dissonant, “Moon Dance” almost suggests a possible encore after Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire.

Kostiainen calls for something of the suggestive sounds and visual movements of the Aurora in the night sky. There are high moments of soft luster in the music, swirls of sounds mildly influenced by Lutoslawski and Ligeti, and much movement of the singers, turning their back to the audience, squatting, using slow, graceful arm sweeps — what have you. All this was accomplished in perfect unison and, again, from memory. I wondered whether these women are all cheerleaders in their day jobs. Except for their attire, they looked it.

Winges, by the way, also arranged the opening chant cum motet from the Llibre Vermell collection, which barely survived the Napoleonic wars. That was so scholarly and adroitly handled that I strongly suspect his hand was behind those encore carols as well. The packed house enjoyed it all, as did I. It's a wonder what kids can accomplish when idealistic goals are set and leadership is fully accomplished.