Review: DaCapo Chamber Choir
The DaCapo Chamber Choir’s 10th anniversary season flowed into an exploration of the idea of Water, the second element in a series.
The choir and a string quartet made up of Henry and Karen Zielinsi, Elspeth Thomson and Ben Bolt-Martin, took turns interpreting the concept during the Saturday evening performance at St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church.
The opening piece, Ave Maris Stella, by the Norwegian church music composer Trond Kverno, was pleasant enough but sounded too much like a typical late 20th-century choral piece to be especially interesting.
Glen Buhr’s Organum from his first string quartet followed. The movement is based on the medieval compositional technique of organum (a melody in the bass followed in parallel motion by one or more upper voices), the results of which are static harmonically and rhythmically. While not boring, it seemed as if Organum would benefit from the context of the other quartet movements.
R. Murray Schafer is one of Canada’s most recognizable composers and is known for his interest in soundscapes. For Schafer music is not about melody or harmony but rather sound, colour and texture. An easy, if not entirely accurate, comparison is the Honda commercial that ran recently featuring a choir making all sorts of sound effects.
His piece Snowforms for women’s choir explores the idea of snow and the bleakness of the northern landscape. For most of the piece, the choir sings with closed mouths and floats gently in and out of consonance.
American composer Eric Whitacre is a favourite of DaCapo, and with good reason. His piece Cloudburst calls for handbell choir, percussion and piano and comes complete with a thunderstorm and uses the sounds of the text as well as snapping and clapping to mimic the sounds of rain.
DaCapo was committed to the performance and for a few minutes, it really did sound like it was raining inside the church.
The last three songs on the program were a departure from the core DaCapo repertoire in that they were folk songs in relatively traditional arrangements. The unabashed tunefulness and thoroughly consonant harmony were a bit of a shock initially, but I soon settled in, helplessly overcome by the songs’ uncomplicated sweetness.
Song for the Mira, one of Canada’s best-known folk songs, is a nostalgic description of life on the Mira River in Cape Breton that pulls mercilessly at the heartstrings of anyone who is away from home. Oh Shenandoah is a much older song from the United States but the effect is the same.
In between these two songs, the string quartet played the English-Irish-Scottish tune The Water Is Wide arranged by the cellist Ben Bolt-Martin. The tune is as simple as they come and quite short, which can be a challenge for an arranger. The result was a bit fiddly but overall an engaging take on an old favourite.
That DaCapo is an excellent choir giving performances of relevant music is no secret. St. John’s was packed to the gills, with people resorting to the choir stalls and altar steps to get a seat. It’s a delight to see an organization supported so strongly by the community and with a new recording slated for release in November 2009, the choir has considerable momentum heading into their second decade of concert-giving.
If Saturday night is any indication, it seems that DaCapo’s only problem is finding a bigger venue in which to perform.
Somehow I doubt that will hold them back.
Upcoming Concerts
Sunday, May 3
Open Ears Festival @ St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church 4pm
Saturday, May 9
Fire & Air @ St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church, 8 p.m
