Frank Martin's Mass for Double Choir

Michael Zwiebach on May 25, 2012

There’s so much great choral music in the Bay Area that following it in any kind of depth would require it’s own publication. But among this overflow, let us point out one of the undersung (though not by SFCV) groups in the Bay Area – the Pacific Collegium, directed by Christopher Kula. These artists-in-residence at St. Paul’s Cathedral are a tight, professionally-drilled bunch, and Kula constantly pushes them to the max with challenging programming.

Writing a year ago in SFCV, Thomas Busse said of Kula,

Where Kula excels, in addition to his commendable drive to keep the whole shindig going, is in training boy choristers. The Collegium provides a regular afterschool program for boy singers as part of its monthly Evensong church services. The five boys appearing in the concert, balanced the fourteen men of the choir with a clear and charming tone and exemplary concert decorum. The cantata choruses on the concert are more difficult than the repertory of most high school and adult choirs in this country. The fact that this music could be sung with intrepid enthusiasm by 10-year-old boys says something about standards of singing and musicianship and about the effectiveness of traditional choral school education.

Well, the boys are back. This year, they join the adult choir for Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir (an early work by one of my favorite underrated composers) as well as a set of anthems, including J.S. Bach’s thrilling Lobet den Herrn (Praise the Lord). Take one day for choral music and look in on this appropriately ambitious concert.