The Madrigal Choir of Binghamton is thrilled to announce that John M. Vaida will be our next artistic director, beginning in January, 2025, with his first concert with us scheduled for March 30th.
This celebratory announcement is brought to you as part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2024/12/18/one-liner-wednesday-such-a-great-idea/
Binghamton NY area folks, please join the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton for our annual presentation of Lessons & Carols for Christmas on Sunday, Deceember 1st at Trinity Memorial Episcopal Church.
Please join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2024/11/27/one-liner-wednesday-gasp/
Last week, I attended a choral concert at Binghamton University that had been billed as a tribute to Dr. Bruce Borton, who had served in the music department for almost three decades and who passed away in August.
I wrote here about the concert that the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton presented last month and had hoped that the concert at the University would address Bruce’s legacy there, but I was disappointed. It seemed that the choral groups had prepared their fall concert as usual and just tacked a couple of pieces on the end that they tied to Dr. Borton.
The most direct tie was the combined choirs singing “Bogoroditse Devo” from the Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil. I had sung the piece with the now-defunct University Chorus under Bruce’s direction and this particular movement additional times. It was chosen because Bruce was a scholar of Rachmaninoff and loved this work in particular.
It was difficult for me to listen to it. I knew it well and could notice the differences in interpretation but the most glaring difference was the lack of maturity in the sound, especially from the basses. It’s not, of course, the singers’ fault that their voices are still maturing, but it demonstrated the reason that University Chorus, which included students, staff, and community members, was so important to Bruce. A more age-diverse choir can produce a richer sound and excute a greater expressive range than a younger choir. This might not matter with some repertoire, but it does with Rachmaninoff.
I was disappointed that they hadn’t reached out to the University Chorus alums still in the area to join the students to perform this piece. It wouldn’t have taken much rehearsal to include us as we know the piece well and it would have been very meaningful for us. I wish they had also reached out to us or a faculty member who worked with Bruce to speak about him. As it was, the only spoken tribute was from a former graduate conducting student, read from a cell phone by one of the conductors.
The concert intensified my feelings of loss, not only of Bruce but also of University Chorus, which was so dear to his heart and to our community.
On Sunday, the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton (MCOB) opened its 46th season with a tribute concert to our late director, Dr. Bruce Borton, who passed away in August. He was only the second artistic director of Madrigal Choir and had served on their board and sung with them before being chosen as artistic director when founder Anne Boyer Cotten retired.
For the first few years of his tenure as MCOB director, Bruce was finishing out his long career with Binghamton (NY) University where I had had the privilege of singing under his direction for 29 years as part of the University Chorus, which included singers from the community as well as staff and students from the university. After the closure phase of the pandemic, with Univeristy Chorus permanently disbanded and Madrigal Choir in need of some additional voices, Bruce welcomed me to the second soprano section and invited me to serve on the MCOB board.
In spring of ’23, Bruce developed a serious illness and was on medical leave for most of the ’23-’24 season. He was, though, able to return to conduct Randall Thompson’s Frostiana for our spring concert in April. I had had a feeling at the time that it would be our last opportunity to sing under his direction but had not expected his decline to advance so quickly. I was grateful to be able to join with members of the Madrigal Choir, the Trinity Memorial Episcopal choir, and some of his former students at the University to sing at his funeral.
Uncharacteristically for me who often writes about difficult things in the moment, I couldn’t bring myself to post about Bruce until now.
The Madrigal Choir concert on Sunday was named for the anthem that Bruce had composed in honor of the 25th anniversary of his friend and colleague, Peter Browne, as music director of their church, Trinity Memorial Episcopal. The text is 1 Corinithians 13, which centers on love and is often used at both weddings and funerals. The second half of the concert began with a tribute to Bruce by Alison Dura, long-time Madrigal Choir singer, officer, and board member, followed by the singing of “Love Never Ends.” It was especially poignant to be singing it at Trinity, accompanied by the organ Peter had played for so many years and where both Peter’s and Bruce’s funerals had been held. The meaningfulness of the text and the beauty of Bruce’s setting were able to help me sing it without breaking.
The concert concluded with Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna, which re-interprets Latin texts and chant into more modern tonalities. It was a reflective way to remember Bruce as we sang, “Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.” Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
Alleluia. Amen.
If you are in the Binghamton, NY area, please join the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton for this concert, which will include a tribute to our late director, Bruce Borton.
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2024/10/23/one-liner-wednesday-no-better-time/
Just back from a long day that featured the first of Madrigal Choir’s Lessons and Carols performances. It was in a small church to our north. Our audience was small but appreciative. It gives me confidence in our performance in our home county tomorrow, which will draw a larger number of listeners.
Now, I need to get some rest…
*****
This short and sweet post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday series. The prompt this week is “confidence.” You can find out more about SoCS here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/12/01/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-dec-2-2023/
For those in the Binghamton/Norwich NY area, please join the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton for our annual Festival of Lessons and Carols this weekend!
This concert promotion message is brought to you as part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday series. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/11/29/one-liner-wednesday-sometimes-2/
My recovery from cataract surgery has been complicating my computer time but the delay gives me a chance to draw together two remarkable choral concerts that I was honored to be part of this month.
The first was a performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony at my alma mater, Smith College, on April first. As you might expect, the performance forces were large, 90-some members of the orchestra and almost 200 singers, student ensembles from Smith, Amherst, UMass-Amherst, and Penn State plus alumni from Smith and Penn State. The orchestra filled the stage at John M. Greene Hall, with the chorus in the gallery.
The concert began with a piece from each of the four college choirs, followed by a brief intermission for all of us to assemble for the Mahler. The Second Symphony is known as the “Resurrection Symphony” – you can read more about it at the link above. The chorus sings in the later part of the fifth and final movement, which afforded us the luxury of watching our conductor, Jonathan Hirsh, and the orchestra playing for an hour before we joined in. As always, I was struck by Mahler’s talent in using such large forces in ways both subtle and powerful. He also uses space in an interesting way, for example, by using percussion and brass off-stage. The fourth and fifth movements include soloists, in our performance, Katherine Saik DeLugan, soprano, and
Rehanna Thelwell, mezzo-soprano, who both sang with soaring beauty.
Of course, the disadvantage of singing at the end of a symphony is that you have to have your brain and voice ready when it’s been a couple of hours since you have warmed up. Fortunately, we were able to rise to the occasion and do our part to create a remarkable and moving performance.
It is always risky to assemble a chorus from singers in disparate locations, who literally don’t rehearse together until 24 hours before the performance. Yet, thanks to Jonathan Hirsh’s skill as a conductor, the preparation given by the other choral directors, and the solitary practice of the alums in our homes, we were able to deliver a moving performance. As soon as Jonathan’s baton came down after the final cadence, the audience was on their feet. It was the longest ovation I have ever seen after a performance in which I have participated. It was a fitting tribute to Iva Dee Hiatt, in whose memory the concert was held.
The weekend was also meaningful for me because I was able to connect with several people who I knew in my student days from 1978-82. I had a lovely lunch with RP, my theory and composition professor and major advisor, whom I also saw at the concert along with his wife. I had dinner with my friend LT, who is an alum from ’81 and who lives in town. She joined several other members of ’81 at the concert, including MC who I hadn’t seen in person in about forty years. There were several alum members of the chorus from my era, including my senior year suite-mate PT. I was able to visit some special places on campus – Helen Hills Hills chapel where I played often for services and spent countless hours practicing, the Lyman Plant House and gardens, Sage Hall, Josten Library, John M. Greene Hall where we performed and where I played my senior recital, and the Poetry Center which didn’t exist in my day but has become an important entity for me.
The second concert was on Sunday, April 23rd. The Madrigal Choir of Binghamton sang our way through a hundred years of Broadway tunes. While we are more accustomed to singing art music, it was fun to sing a popular concert. We were thrilled to draw an audience of over 250 people, who smiled, swayed with the beat, and applauded familiar tunes from Gershwin, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Sondheim, and Bernstein, while also enthusiastically receiving some newer tunes that might have been unfamiliar, such as “Who Lives, Who Dies” from Hamilton.
It was also great to have the opportunity to feature our accompanist, Jean Herman Henssler, at the beautiful grand piano at St. Thomas Aquinas Church and soloists from Madrigal Choir. We were honored to have a special guest, Bex Odorisio, who recently completed a national tour of Hadestown, sing a couple of tunes from her extensive repertoire. I especially enjoyed “Times Like This” from Lucky Stiff.
This was our final concert of the season and I’m looking forward to seeing what our director, Bruce Borton, has planned for our next season, which will be the 45th anniversary of the Madrigal Choir of Binghamton. While I’ve only been a member for a little over a year, I’m so grateful to have a choral home again after the demise of the Binghamton University Chorus, with whom I sang from 1982-2019.
Stay tuned for more music gigs, perhaps this summer, but definitely in the fall!
Why, you may ask, is Joanne wearing a fetching Renaissance costume?
Because tomorrow, Sunday, July 17, 2022, I will be singing madrigals with The Madrigal Choir of Binghamton at the Much Ado in the Garden event, sponsored by Cornell Cooperative Extension-Broome County.
There will be music, dancing, garden tours, Shakespearean scenes, games, food, and more, so come to Cutler Botanic Garden and join us!
Madrigal Choir will be singing at 2:00. At 11:15 AM, I will also be participating in a mini-workshop and reading with the Binghamton Poetry Project, but not in costume.
I’m sure that you want to see my headpiece, so one more costume shot.
Yesterday, for the first time since the Smith College Alumnae Chorus concerts in Slovenia in July 2019, I sang in a choral concert. This ends the longest drought in choral performances since I was a teenager. While the pandemic was a major factor in this break, the other complication was that the Binghamton University Chorus, which I joined in fall of 1982 after moving to the area, may have been permanently disbanded, something that I suspected at our last concert in May, 2019.
Last fall, I attended the first in-person concert since the onset of the pandemic by The Madrigal Choir of Binghamton. I have long had friends who sang with Madrigal Choir, but always assumed that I would not be the most qualified person they could find to fill a rare opening in the soprano section. At the concert, they announced, though, that they were looking for new members in all voice parts. Bolstered by the fact that Bruce Borton, professor emeritus from Binghamton University under whose direction I sang with University Chorus throughout his tenure, is now the director of Madrigal Choir, I inquired about joining and was accepted. Due to our family trip to London for the holidays and the omicron spike, the concert yesterday was my first opportunity to perform as a member of Madrigal Choir.
We joined with the choir of Trinity Memorial Episcopal Church to present Leo Sowerby’s Lenten cantata, Forsaken of Man, under the direction of Trinity’s music director Timothy Smith. While I had been familiar with some of Sowerby’s work, I had not previously heard this powerful and dramatic piece. With passages from the gospels, including some of Jesus’s hopeful teachings, and additional text by Edward Borgers, Forsaken of Man concentrates on the betrayal and abandonment of Jesus in his final days.
As often happens in Passion settings, the story is proclaimed by The Evangelist, for us tenor Kevin Bryant. Brian Mummert portrayed Jesus and bass John Shelhart chillingly sang the roles of Caiaphas, Judas, and Peter. They were all magnificent as were the other soloists with smaller parts, including Dr. Borton as Pilate.
What I appreciate as a member of the chorus is the role that Sowerby chose for us. Sometimes, we were participants in the narrative, becoming the disciples, or the crowd calling for crucifixion, or the soldiers mocking Jesus. At other times, we set the scene or offer commentary, as in the choral prologue and epilogue.
Unlike many Passion settings, the soloists and chorus unfold the story in a series of four parts, rather than a succession of short solo arias and choral movements. This is part of the drama of the piece, as there are many sudden shifts in mood, voicing, and tempo.
Another major driver of the dramatic expression of the story is the incredibly demanding organ part, played masterfully by the William K. Trafka on Trinity’s Casavant organ, which was expanded in 2018. Sowerby was himself an organist, as is evident from the complexity and expressive nuance of the score. It was a thrill for me to be singing in the chancel at Trinity. I had served there as an assistant back in the mid-’80s and this concert brought back many memories of that time, including some choir members who are still serving.
The sad news is that this is the last public performance of the season for the Madrigal Choir but I am looking forward to the announcement of the next season. I’m grateful to have a new choral home! Stay tuned for more about Madrigal Choir in the fall when we resume – or perhaps before…
Joanne Corey 