San Francisco Classical Voice

May 24, 1999

The variety of repertoire available for a chorus made up solely of girls and young women is limited, yet there were no limitations evident in the wonderful concert given by the San Francisco Girls Chorus under the expert direction of Sharon J. Paul at Davies Symphony Hall on Monday, May 24th. The Girls Chorus, celebrating its 20th anniversary, presented a varied and intelligent program that was a delight from start to finish.

Two premieres of commissioned works and the presence of a celebrated guest artist added a touch of glamour to the event, but the real stars of the evening were the 325 girls, who sang in a variety of combinations. While there was much to celebrate in the wonderful sounds drawn from the Chorus by Sharon Paul, it was equally amazing to see the girls move about the stage between pieces in carefully choreographed position-changes executed with the accuracy of a Swiss clock and reminiscent of the complexity of the air traffic patterns in the sky over a busy airport.

The Girls Chorus is actually the umbrella name for six separate ensembles, grouped by the age and experience of the members. The girls receive training in voice, music theory, and other performance-related activities. Although Paul is the Artistic Director, four other conductors are responsible for the training of these fine young singers: Elizabeth Avakian, Kimberly Rankin, Patricia Martin, and Amy Stuart Hunn.

The 20th Anniversary performance, titled Patterns, after one of the commissioned works on the program, was an ambitious blend of classical and folk music from around the world. Over the course of the evening, the girls sang expertly in English, Mandarin Chinese, Czech, Swedish, Hungarian, Spanish, and German. Their diction was crystalline in every piece, but their clearness of pronunciation never interfered with the fine phrasing, blend, and attention to musical detail that was evident throughout.

The massed choruses sang several selections, including a lovely arrangement of "To the Ploughboy" by Vaughan Williams, and a clever round, "Sing All Ye Joyful," by local composer Kirke Mechem.

One of the highlights of the evening was Chen Yi's "Chinese Poems," the first work commissioned for all six levels of the Girls Chorus. Chen was a San Francisco resident from 1993 to 1996, when she served as composer-in-residence for Chanticleer and the Women's Philharmonic, so her music is well-known to local audiences. For this five-movement work, Chen chose five popular ancient poems from her native China. The girls sang in various combinations, at one point dividing into thirteen separate vocal parts to create lovely, swirling sonorities produced by clusters of notes sung with unerring accuracy and confidence.

In another of the movements, all of the Girls Chorus conductors were on stage, directing their individual choirs in lines that were purposely out of synch with those sung by each of the other choruses. The final movement featured the youngest girls imitating the sounds of crickets while the other girls sang of stars, waterfalls, and heaven. Judging from the audience's response (a mid-concert standing ovation), the work was a resounding success.

The two senior levels of the Chorus -- Chorissima and Virtuose -- performed several selections. Virtuose, a 15-member group of Chorus alumnae, sang two beautiful folk songs, "Irish Lullaby," arranged by Steven Sametz, and "O Waly Waly," arranged by John C. Phillips, as well as a rousing Romanian folk song, "Chindia," arranged by Alexandru Pascanu.

The forty-voice Chorissima also sang several folk songs, including what may have been the evening's most hauntingly beautiful performance, "Queen Jane," a Kentucky folk song arranged by Stephen Hatfield. Other notable works included Bay Area composer Brian Holmes's touching setting of a Jane Kenyon poem, "Let Evening Come"; Swedish composer Arne Mellnoe's "Aglepta" (a piece judged so difficult when it was composed in 1969 for a choral competition that all but one of the participating choirs refused to sing it); and Finish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara's evocative setting of Garcia Lorca's poem "El Grito" (The Scream).

In the second half of the program, famed operatic mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade joined Chorissima in Franz Schubert's "Staendchen" (Serenade), before performing two sets of solo songs. She sang Arthur Honegger's adorable "Petit Cours de Morale" (A Little Course in Morals) with her customary supple tone, beautiful musical line, and charm and wit. "Drei Liebeslieder" (Three Love Songs) by Richard Strauss (thoughtfully dedicated to the evening's participants), was gorgeously sung.

The final piece on the program was "Patterns" by Jake Heggie, a setting of Amy Lowell's moving poem about love found and lost. It's easy to understand why Heggie, the San Francisco Opera's Chase Composer-in-Residence, is a favorite among today's most active recitalists. (In addition to writing for von Stade, he has also composed songs for Dawn Upshaw, Carol Vaness, Sylvia McNair, and Rene Fleming.) He pays exquisitely careful attention to the text he is setting in ways that highlight and enhance the meaning of the words.

Heggie's harmonic language is lush and tonal -- well-suited to the nature of Lowell's poetry. He skillfully surmounted any limitations inherent in writing for treble chorus and mezzo-soprano soloist and created a work that was both easily accessible and deeply affecting.

Pianist Dwight Okamura, who accompanied von Stade and the Girls Chorus throughout the concert, is stepping down as the Chorus accompanist after ten years of extraordinary contributions to the organization. In the evening's program, whether rendering a complex reduction of an orchestral score or the tricky piano accompaniment to a Strauss song, his playing was always imbued with an intensity of musical purpose and spirit that served well all those he accompanied.

(Frank Albinder, in his eleventh season with the male vocal ensemble Chanticleer, works regularly as a choral clinician and adjudicator and is a former college choir director.)

©1999 Frank Albinder, all rights reserved