Elora Festival Singers (3/15/15)

The Elora Festival Singers, Noel Edison, conductor, is a Canada-based professional choir that I heard in concert at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church on Sunday afternoon. The 23-voice ensemble began their program with what I call the “English choir school sound”—sort of like a choral organ (a white choral sound, as in vocal purity with very little vibrato). There were two pieces by Timothy Corlis (b. 1972), a Canadian composer who was in the audience, and two by Eric Whitacre (b. 1970), an American, er, USofAn composer. The first Corlis work displayed the choir’s nicely blended choral sound and had minimal piano accompaniment, in a slightly minimalist style. James Bourne, one of the basses, was the able accompanist throughout the afternoon, as needed. The first of the two Whitacre works that followed was calm and slightly dissonant at times and demonstrated nicely controlled dynamics. Immortality, the second work by Corlis, was commissioned especially for the choir’s recent appearance at Carnegie Hall. While I liked it, I found it to be a touch too repetitious toward the end. Two more contemporary pieces followed before closing out the first half with Benjamin Britten’s (1913–1976) Rejoice in the Lamb, an eight-movement cantata for choir, soloists and organ (played here by
Andrew Henderson). The rather absurdist text, written by Christopher Smart while he was in an insane asylum, is pretty well known to me, and I had no problems understanding it in the choir’s capable hands. The four soloists, stepping out from the choir, all sang well. The eight movements progress in a through-composed style—each is distinct but leads to the next with no real break, yet not exactly nonstop.

After intermission, the works were a bit on the lighter side, including a small set of four Old American Songs by Aaron Copland (1900–1990). Of the four, my favorite was I Bought Me a Cat, which is sort of like a grown-up’s version of Old MacDonald. Along the way we hear cat, duck, goose, hen, pig, cow, horse, and wife(!) sounds. It was robust, as compared with the two tender songs that preceded it, At the River and Long Time Ago.

Folk songs and quasi-folk songs followed, including settings of John Brown’s Body (with a terrific soprano solo), a jazz-tinged Londonderry Air, Loch Lomond, Shenandoah, and She’s Called Nova Scotia. The latter could have become treacly, but the powerhouse baritone solo just about turned it into a power ballad/anthem with piano and choral accompaniment. The final work was a William L. Dawson (1886–1970) arrangement of the spiritual Soon-Ah Will Be Done. The enthusiastic crowd response led to an encore of another spiritual (maybe also a Dawson arrangement?), Every Time I Feel the Spirit.

This was a wonderfully performed concert by a fine choral group. They hit the mark whether it was a cappella, with piano accompaniment, or with the organ, in a nicely varied performance, with the choir as the main event, backed up by fine step-out solo turns from individual singers. Many thanks to Andrew Henderson and Mary Huff for providing me with the opportunity to hear the Elora Festival Singers.

ConcertMeister