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Water & Light The Choral Project Daniel Hughes, Conductor
The Choral Project performs a program featuring the music of Eric Whitacre. Included are the enormously-popular “Cloudburst” and the “Five Hebrew Love Songs” performed with String Quartet.
Founded in 1996 by Artistic Director Daniel Hughes, The Choral Project has performed throughout Northern California in concert performances, interfaith services, and choral festivals, including a performance at the National Cathedral in Washington DC, as part of the California State Day Celebration Service. In June of 2001, The Choral Project received rave reviews and standing ovations at concert performances during their first international tour to Mexico and Costa Rica, which included highly acclaimed performances on Mexican National Radio, and a joint concert with the Café Chorale in Costa Rica. They have performed world premieres of compositions by numerous composers including Eric Whitacre.
"...demonstrates an impressive command of some very challenging works, both a cappella and accompanied by various combinations of percussion, piano, strings, and winds, written by contemporary composers who have a special affinity for voices and text-setting."
—David Vernier - ClassicsToday.com
Choral music fans will have much to savor on this new release from the San Francisco-based ensemble known rather prosaically as The Choral Project. This roughly 40-voice group demonstrates an impressive command of some very challenging works, both a cappella and accompanied by various combinations of percussion, piano, strings, and winds, written by contemporary composers who have a special affinity for voices and text-setting. Although Morten Lauridsen's gorgeous setting of O magnum mysterium by now is an established repertoire piece for many choirs and has been recorded many times, it's done so beautifully here that it makes the disc worth owning for this performance alone. But there's also Frank Ticheli's realization of Sara Teasdale's poem There will be rest--a true masterpiece that every capable choir and choral aficionado should know--and David Giardiniere's arrangement of Elgar's "Nimrod" (from Enigma Variations) to the Agnus Dei text, both of which will impress anyone with a love of singing, beautiful melodies, and more or less traditional harmonic and textural structures.
Less impressive are the more "modern" works by Eric Whitacre (b. 1970) that favor cluster-type harmonies, non-traditional vocal sounds (such as birds in the cleverly scored Little Birds), and overworked thematic ideas that overstay their welcome, as in the nine-minute Cloudburst (text by Octavio Paz) or six-minute setting of e.e. cummings' i thank You God for most this amazing day. And then there's John Tavener's intensely boring and inexplicably oft-recorded Hymn to the Mother of God, which receives as competent a reading as can be expected. There's nothing wrong with the singing in any of these instances--it's just that the music doesn't captivate, and the sound is close and one-dimensional. The opening Five Hebrew Love Songs, which employ a string quartet, suffers from a rather flat sound-stage even though the overall quality of the reproduction of instruments and voices is very fine. Yes, it's tough to match a string quartet with a few dozen strong voices, and perhaps that's the real problem with this otherwise absorbing and thoughtfully constructed work. Texts and translations are provided, but there's absolutely no information about the composers--a pity--or about the individual pieces. As mentioned, choral fans will definitely want this; and anyone who wants to hear a couple of real gems--Lauridsen's O magnum and Ticheli's There will be rest--also should give this a listen.
—David Vernier
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