Keeping the faith fresh
A new group of vocal experimenters has been frequenting the North Bay of late. Founded by Sanford Dole earlier this year, this group of 18 singers performed an a cappella program titled “Spirited Light” in San Francisco, Marin and Sonoma with a final concert in Healdsburg on Sunday, Nov. 8.
Their Healdsburg concert was held in a large and acoustically exquisite gallery with the singers surrounded by art. The new show at the Paul Mahder Gallery was as fresh and experimental as some of the harmonies we were about to hear.
Exploring the intersection of the experimental and the sacred, this was a program of religious poetry and psalms and Latin Mass all set to music by contemporary composers. Dole, who is both a composer and the Music Director of St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church, has explored that intersection for many years, and included one of his own works on the program. His popular “Hodie Christus” had bright bounce and a joyous gusto, and jazz chords to give flair to the Latin text.
The concert began with “Spirited Light” by Jake Runestad (after which they named their program). Set to a prayer by Hildegard von Bingen, it opened with a brisk unity of sound and bits of pop flavor. The slower moments were gentle breaths, and then they turned pertly humorous as lines alternated and leapfrogged past each other. The warmth of the closing was almost mouth filling.
Frank Ferko also set his text to three Hildegard texts, but his vision had an ascetic purity. “O vis aeternitatis” (O strength eternal) filled the air with thick murmurs, building to ancient harmonies that rang sharp echoes in the rounded space. It was accessible and inviolate, clearly modern and clearly venerable. Then “Caritas abundant” (Charity imbued) assembled thick dissonances one note at a time until the air was filled with a soft and luminous weave.
In Roxanna Panufnik’s “Prayer” they sang of birth and breath and blood, women’s sharp colors against the soft thunder of a bass drone. It was a gorgeous work of pungent dissonances and wide chasms, and a soaring solo by soprano Ruth Baillie.
And the next work was another lovely moment, Pawel Lukaszewski’s setting of Psalmus 102. This was dense stuff, powerfully delivered.
Completing a trio of works that one hopes to hear often was “The Spheres” by Ola Gjello. Here the women’s chords slowly stepped down a fifth and nearly back up, zigzags down and across the men’s intervals in ancient Greek articles of faith. It was a simple device with a complex effect, enchanting and celestial, timeless and deeply personal.
After intermission they performed “Missa a cappella” (2011), a six-movement work by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara. This evocative work was carefully rendered, and included a solo of striking clarity by baritone Skye Thompson.
They concluded with Ivo Antognini’s playful “Canticum Novum,” with hopscotch rhythms on major scales.
While these singers have worked hard, they are a new group and of unequal strengths. After this program of particularly difficult arrangements, I will be looking forward to anything else they do, although I hope they keep singing in galleries.
And that artwork? “How do you like singing amid this art show?” I asked Ruthann Lovetang, an alto and founding member.
“It’s perfect – edgy, just like the music,” she replied. Indeed, the gallery was filled with images of the human condition – from comedic to obsessive, biting to disturbing, thoughtful and irreverent. In other words, as relevant and edgy as faith.
—Adam Broner
Photo of conductor and composer Sanford Dole