St. Charles Singers to close season with original works
The St. Charles Singers will conclude its 25th anniversary season with a concert program highlighting works written expressly for them - including two world premieres.
The chamber choir of some 30 voices will present "A Perfectly Fitting Finale: Works Written for the St. Charles Singers" at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 6, at Baker Memorial United Methodist Church, 307 Cedar Ave., St. Charles; and at 4 p.m. Sunday, June 7, at St. Michael Church, 310 S. Wheaton Ave., Wheaton. Single concert tickets are $30, $20 for seniors 65 and older, and $10 for full-time students age 23 and younger. For tickets and information, call (630) 513-5272 or visit stcharlessingers.com.
The mixed-voice ensemble will give the world premiere of the "Lincoln Cantata" by prominent Hungarian composer Gyula Fekete (YOO-lah FEH-keh-teh). It was commissioned by the St. Charles Singers and is dedicated to the ensemble.
The cantata is a single-movement work for full choir and string quartet. Jeffrey Hunt, founder and artistic director of the St. Charles Singers, describes it as "very tonal, with a modern Romantic feel and sound."
It's a tribute to democracy and statesmanship written to coincide with the Abraham Lincoln bicentennial. The work incorporates excerpts from the writings of Lincoln and Arpad Goncz, the first democratically elected president of the modern Republic of Hungary and a national hero (whom Fekete once met on an overseas airline flight between Hungary and the U.S.).
Well-known in Chicago music circles, Fekete received a master's degree from Roosevelt University and a doctorate in composition from Northwestern University. He is currently an associate professor of composition at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest. A number of his works have been recorded by the Hungaroton label.
While pursuing graduate studies in the Chicago area, Fekete sang in the tenor section of the St. Charles Singers. Fittingly, some songs on the program are about the warm-weather season, others are about songs and singing.
In the latter category is the festive "Let All the World in Ev'ry Corner Sing" by Robert A. Boyd of Westmont, which will receive its world premiere.
The song, scored for choir with piano accompaniment, is a musical setting of a sacred poem written by 17th-century English poet George Herbert. Boyd calls it a "wonderful and exciting text."
Hunt, of the St. Charles Singers, describes it as "a meaty piece" that's luminous and "very joyful."
"I knew I wanted to contrast the sounds of the women and the men, reflecting 'ev'ry corner,'" Boyd wrote in a note to the ensemble. But in keeping with what Boyd calls "the spirit of the poetry," the voices join together at the end to repeat the phrase "My God and King!"
The song was commissioned by and is dedicated to the St. Charles Singers. Boyd has been singing in the tenor section of the choir since 2000.
Boyd, who has 18 published choral works to his credit, is currently a lecturer in choral music education at Northwestern University. In 2003, a national music organization honored the longtime high school choral director as Outstanding Music Educator of Illinois, making him the first choral director in the state to earn that award. In 2006, he received the Howard A. Decker Award for excellence from the Illinois chapter of the American Choral Directors Association.
Legendary British-born jazz pianist, arranger, and composer George Shearing wrote the swing-infused "Songs and Sonnets from Shakespeare" for the St. Charles Singers in 1999. The ensemble gave the premiere on July 9 of that year.
The piece, written for full choir, piano, and bass, was edited by none other than England's John Rutter, a friend of the ensemble and, in the view of many, the greatest contemporary choral composer in the English-speaking world. Rutter was guest conductor of the St. Charles Singers for the 1999 premiere, with Shearing himself at the piano. The St. Charles Singers last performed this piece at a 2000 concert in Cambridge, England.
The ensemble will perform songs by American arrangers and composers William Dawson, Alice Parker, Robert Shaw, and Ronald Staheli -including Staheli's arrangement of the early American folk hymn "How Can I Keep from Singing" - and Swedish composer Waldemar Ahlen's tribute to springtime, "The Earth Adorned."
A set of traditional folk songs of the British Isles will include arrangements by Englishmen Sir David Willcocks, John Rutter, Jeremy Jackman, and Daryl Runswick; and "I Have Had Singing," arranged by noted American choral composer and director Steven Sametz of Lehigh University.