Hello Everyone:
I promised you my Director’s Notes. Here they are.
Director’s Notes:
I am so honored to be conducting this penultimate concert of my thirty-sixth season with BCAS. I have been looking forward to this sacred music concert for some time now. My BFA degree in Music Education was especially important in forming and nurturing my love of this genre as I learned how to share this expressive art form with singers and audiences alike during my teaching and conducting career.
I have vivid remembrances of the day President Kennedy was assassinated on Friday, November 22nd, 1963. I was a college first-year student and in an English class. After class, as I was walking back to Baird Hall, the music building of UB, news was spreading quickly, and I somehow found my way to the Student Union where hundreds of us watched the unfolding of this terrible tragedy on small TVs. On Monday, November 25th, the day of the funeral, the UB Choruses, of which I was a member, sang a memorial concert for our fallen President. The program consisted of Bach Cantata movements and other appropriate works accompanied by the UB Sinfonia. We rehearsed all weekend and learned the program in two days. If my memory holds true, it was a difficult program of choral works. I was so grateful to have had that opportunity. It was a deeply moving and appropriate way to mourn and grieve and for me…to sing!
Why do I want to share that with you today? For me, it was the beginning of learning how much music can soothe the soul and allow for its melodies and beautiful harmonies to help heal. Music is so powerful! Choral music with its texts is stunningly sustaining.
As the years have gone by, hundreds and hundreds of concerts have been sung and heard that have accomplished just that, soothed the souls of singers and our audiences. Perfect examples of that idea include many works of American composer Dan Forrest. Many of his pieces are written with healing in mind. His texts are incredibly meaningful, especially in today’s world of such uncertainty and anxieties, pain, and recovery. Each of us know friends and family who need these beautiful sounds and texts to help face daily life, its low sides, and its upsides as well.
Gabriel Faure’s Cantique de Jean Racine and Requiem are often paired together on concert programs. Faure composed few choral works, but these are his most famous. The melodic sounds of each work, and movements especially in the Requiem are celestial in sound. Note the harp!
This Requiem does not follow the formulaic Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead. The last movement, In Paradisum is a part of the actual Burial Service of the Mass. You’ll notice that John Rutter, in his historical recreation of the original Faure score, uses several violas and a single solo violin in his orchestration. Some musicologists suggest that this interesting, yet unusual use of instruments, could be traced back to the opening of the Brahms Requiem, where the composer used divided violas, celli, and string bassi in the opening movement.
BCAS and I hope you enjoy today’s concert. Read the texts. Absorb the beautiful sounds. Feel the emotions that the composers are conveying. May you find healing harmonies, uplifting texts, and a soothing musical experience. Please be safe, healthy and may your spirit swell in hope and happiness.
Don’t forget our last concert of this season, Sunday, June 11th, 3:00 at the Riviera Theatre, Live at the RIV: A Loving Finale. This will be my last concert as Conductor/Music Director of this wonderful organization to which I owe so much. I’d love for you to join us for an afternoon of toe-tapping, exhilarating music from many Broadway shows. Invite friends and family. Please go to www.buffalochoralarts.org to purchase tickets.
Thanks, and God Bless you all,
Marcia Giambrone