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CHORAL MUSIC
December 23, 2003
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By Janos Gereben
It was a family affair in Davies Hall on Tuesday night, albeit for a family of over 3,000. A full house — of alumni, parents,
and music lovers — joined 300 members of the San Francisco Girls Chorus to raise a joyful noise at the group's 21st annual
Christmas Sing-Along. There was an impressive range of programming, the concert spanning music from a commissioned world premiere
of a work by Kurt Erickson. to the sublime neo-classical celebration of the season with Daniel Pinkham's Christmas Cantata,
to something as pedestrian and commonplace as Jingle Bells.
Back up for a minute. The very same, maligned Jingle Bells turned into one of the highlights of the concert. The Level IV
chorus, conducted by Elizabeth Avakian, sang John Ness Beck's arrangement with such sincere dedication, lightness of spirit and
all-around technical excellence that all those years of commercial Jingle-Bells torture just fell away, and the music stayed to
enchant and thrill.
SFCG, celebrating its 25th anniversary, is one of America's formidable educational and performing organization for children.
Under the direction of Susan McMane, who conducted a great deal of the concert, it has developed both show-biz panache and
professional discipline, both clearly in evidence Tuesday night. Starting exactly on time — a rare accomplishment, given a big
crowd and the otherwise informal atmosphere — the concert had a affecting opening with single voices (Megan Pendleton, Ronika
McClain and Ashley Corpuz) singing David Willcocks' arrangement of Once in Royal David's City, the entire chorus joining
them, section by section, walking through the audience and onto the stage, with lights in their hand.
McMane conducted highly successful audience-participation performances of O Come, All Ye Faithful and other holiday favorites, the presence of Girls Chorus alumnae in the audience clearly discernible. Patricia Martin directed Level II in John Rutter's Angels' Carol, Judaline Ryan led Level III in Kling, Glöckchen, kling in a fine performance, with only an occasional slackening in diction. There was a surprisingly near-inaudible performance by the youngest girls, in Level I, making one wonder why they were reined in that much. The Chorus School, conducted by Avakian, had no such problems. For showstoppers, the Virtuose scored with Erickson's new I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day and, in another surprisingly effective bit of musical slumming, the Mel Torme-Robert Wells Christmas Song. The pride of SFGC, Chorissima, shone in Lully's Regina coeli, Frank La Rocca's Magnificat (Michelle Corpuz and Dalia Sawaya, soloists), and the world premiere of Jacqueline B. Hairston's arrangement of the Jamaican folksong Mary and the Baby Hungry.
After more industrial-grade sing-alongs, about a hundred alumnae from the audience joined the girls on stage for a Joy to the World that made one forget the rain outside, the all-too-recent memories of the blackout, earthquake, and increase in the national security level, not to mention the country's first mad cow disease episode and other troubles to be reported in tomorrow's headlines. It was joy, for the time being, with a gloriously lyrical Silent Night by the "massed forces" in the end. Supporting the chorus well throughout the evening were pianists Susan Soehner and Susan Blinderman, organist Jonathan Dimmock, and a grand brass ensemble: David Burkhart and John Pearson (trumpets), Meredith Brown (French horn), Tom Hornig (trombone), and Zachariah Spellman (tuba). McMane read responses from chorus members to the anniversary question: "What do you want to be when you are 25?" Plenty of would-be singers, of course, one astronaut, a neurosurgeon, and expression of a misguided ambition to be mayor of San Francisco, but my favorite was "money manager and singer." There is a young lady, who picked up on the organization's ongoing integration of practicality and passion.
(Janos Gereben, a regular contributor to www.sfcv.org, is arts editor of the
Post Newspaper Group. His e-mail address is janos451@earthlink.net.)
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