Music review: Sunday concerts
World folk music, Berlioz’ Sacred Trilogy performed passionately
April 22, 2008
Peter Jacobi
Folk music of the world and art music appreciated around the world were offered in generous samplings to Bloomington audiences in Auer Hall on Sunday, each with appropriate passion.
The passion was ebulliently expressed in the afternoon as the IU International Vocal Ensemble presented a program of songs, choruses and dances from the Americas and Azerbaijan. It came more quietly and gently in the evening, when the Symphonic Choir, Conductors’ Orchestra and soloists performed Hector Berlioz’ Sacred Trilogy, “L’Enfance du Christ” (“The Childhood of Christ”).
The programs were a world apart in atmospheres and styles, and yet, one could take satisfaction from both, from their rich content and persuasive performances.
Music from all over
Director Katherine Domingo and an assortment of specialists had the International Vocal Ensemble doing all sorts of musical things, from “vocables” — sounds that have no meaning and can be sung by anyone — as used by the Mohawks in eastern Canada, to cackles and chirps employed for songs of nature by the native Krao people of Brazil. A native of the Nipmuc tribe, guest Ojetta Silas, trained the singers in the “vocables.” Marilia Hagen, a native of Brazil now living in Bloomington, showed them the how of the Krao songs.
Lilting melodies from Mexico, led by IVE member and guitarist Pablo Vanwoerkom, and from Venezuela, taught to the ensemble by Kimberly Roberts and her Venezuelan mother, Doris, were other samplings explored from the realm of world music. So, too, there were rhythmic songs from Cuba and poignantly expressive ones from southern Appalachia.
And to each sort of music was given the fashion and flair needed to bring a tradition from afar to the local stage. That certainly was the case when Aida Huseynova, an excellent pianist and professor from the Baku Music Academy in Azerbaijan, here on a Fulbright, had the singers tackle and conquer some tongue twisters from her country. And so, too, when the gifted Keith McCutchen, director of the African American Choral Ensemble, sent the singers powerfully well into the realms of spirituals, gospel and jazz.
Throughout, IVE director Domingo either took sensitive command of her musicians or paved the way for others to do so.
From Berlioz
“L’Enfance du Christ” is an oratorio of sorts, a three-part journey into biblical history, a telling, partly from scripture and the rest from composer Berlioz’ imagination, of the young Jesus: his birth, his family’s escape from the fearful rage of a jealous Herod, and his growing up among the sheltering Ishmaelites.
The music is gorgeous, radiant, sublime and other assorted adjectives of that sort. Here is a Berlioz more peaceful and reflective than one is accustomed to. But the orchestration, even though for a compact orchestra, is as lush as one would expect. The solo and vocal lines are dramatically expressive, to say the least.
Stephen Mager, a doctoral candidate in the Jacobs School, conducted Sunday’s highly commendable performance, one exuding reverence and tonal beauty. The Symphonic Choir sang with resonance and transparency. The Conductors’ Orchestra followed direction adroitly and had — in flutists Sofia Hailu and Ji Hye Choi and harpist Ah-Rim Kim — a splendid threesome for the oratorio’s effervescent “Trio of the Young Ishmaelites.”
The soloists had been chosen with care and gave Berlioz their excellent all. Not only were they vocally on the mark but dramatically, and that included tenors Chris Lysack (Recitant) and John Leonard (Roman Centurion); soprano Johanna Moffitt (Mary); baritone Justin Moore (Joseph), and basses Adam Cioffari (Polydorus), Miroslaw Witkowski (Herod) and Erik Anstine (Ishmaelite Father). All deserve praise, but most certainly does conductor Mager.
The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music would like
to thank the Herald Times for permission to republish this review.
