Reinventing the Concert Experience: Investigating the Effect of Staging on the Performance of Choral Music

A document submitted to The Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTORAL OF MUSICAL ARTS

In the Ensembles and Conducting Division of the College-Conservatory of Music Choral Conducting

March 4, 2020

by

Molly Ann Getsinger

B.M.E., Shepherd University, 2012 M.M., Westminster Choir College, 2017

Committee Chair: Dr. L. Brett Scott, D.M.A. Committee Member: Dr. Earl Rivers, D.M.A. Committee Member: Dr. Quinn Patrick Ankrum, D.M.A. ABSTRACT

This document will explore the current practice of the addition of staging in choral performance. In an effort to counteract the current trajectory of decreasing attendance figures for classical music performances, artistic directors and ensembles are seeking to redefine the concert experience. The addition of staging is becoming an increasingly popular option within choral music performance. Seeking to both enhance the dramatic narrative of a work and engage differently with modern audiences, conductors are adding staging to choral works that were not originally conceived or intended to be performed with theatrical elements. Choral ensembles

(professional, collegiate, and volunteer alike) are collaborating with dance companies, hiring actors, or choosing to incorporate movement for the singers themselves.

Dramatic staging of traditional choral literature as discussed in this document is a comparatively recent phenomenon within the history of choral music. As a result, there is relatively little published research or writings on the subject. The aim of this study is to provide a framework for interpretation as to why the trend has emerged and its potential future applications. The first two chapters will examine the current practice of staging choral music, providing general background and motivation. The third chapter will survey cases of previously staged performances from both collegiate and professional choral ensembles. The fourth chapter will explore opposing views for and against the use of staging in choral performance. The fifth chapter will seek to outline logistical aspects of staging for conductors who are interested in exploring the practice with their own ensembles. The final chapter will consider the future of staging in choral music and the more general concept of innovation in live classical music performance.

ii

Copyright © 2020 by Molly Ann Getsinger All rights reserved

iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would first like to thank my advisor, Dr. Brett Scott, for his guidance and patience throughout the preparation of this document, as well as his willingness to be a sounding board whenever I’ve needed it during my time at CCM. I would also like to thank Dr. Earl Rivers and

Dr. Quinn Patrick Ankrum for their help in preparing and editing this document, and for their support and guidance throughout the degree process.

Thank you to Dr. Joe Miller, John LaBouchadière, Audrey Chait, Shane Thomas, Dr.

Marie Bucoy-Calavan, Rod Caspers, Matthew Coffey, Sam Brukhman, Dr. Donald Nally, and

Kathleen Kelly for their willingness to participate through interview questions and answers.

Thank you to my graduate study conductors and mentors Dr. Joe Miller, Dr. Amanda

Quist, Dr. Brett Scott, and Dr. Earl Rivers. Your mentorship throughout my time at both

Westminster and CCM has had an impact on my life and career that I will always be grateful for.

Thank you to my friends and CCM colleagues, particularly Kevin Coker, Trevor

Kroeger, Matthew Coffey, and Shane Thomas. Your friendship has provided much needed moral support and comical relief over the past three years.

Last, but not least, thank you to my family for your love and constant support. It means more to me than I can ever express.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

ABSTRACT ii

AKNOWLEDGMENTS iii

CHAPTER 1 Introduction 1

CHAPTER 2 Defining Choral Theater 4 Introduction 4 Motivation for Research 5 Review of Literature 7

CHAPTER 3 Case Studies 13 Introduction 13 Westminster Choir 14 University of Cincinnati, CCM Chorale 24 University of Akron Chamber Choir 27 Verdigris Ensemble 31 Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble 36 The Crossing 40

CHAPTER 4 Opposing Viewpoints 49

CHAPTER 5 Considerations for the Conductor 55 Introduction 55 Conductor Preparation and Logistical Considerations 55

CHAPTER 6 Conclusion 63

BIBLIOGRAPHY 67

APPENDIX 77

v

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

“Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.” – Winston Churchill

In an effort to counteract the current trajectory of decreasing attendance figures for classical music performances, artistic directors and ensembles are seeking to redefine the concert experience. The addition of staging is becoming an increasingly popular option within choral music performance. Seeking to both enhance the dramatic narrative of a work and engage differently with modern audiences, conductors are adding staging to choral works that were not originally conceived or intended to be performed with theatrical elements. Choral ensembles

(professional, collegiate, and volunteer alike) are collaborating with dance companies, hiring actors, or choosing to incorporate movement for the singers themselves. Staging for the choir can range from small, subtle movements of the head or arms, to complex motions and blocking

(which should be distinguished from that of synchronized choreography) requiring the singers to be both musically and physically adept performers.

As this trend continues to gain momentum, a debate has emerged as to the validity and necessity of such theatrical elements in the choral art form. Does the movement and other visual elements help to enhance the performance, or does the movement detract from the music itself?

Traditionally, the performance of choral music has been a purely aural experience. Any visual considerations have focused primarily on a sense of uniformity between members of the ensemble and the conductor as the focal point. Naturally, most classical music professionals find inherent value and satisfaction in this traditional concert formula. Many of us became lovers of

1 classical music because of its aural characteristics, drawn to works that were composed to stand on their own in either sacred spaces or within concert halls.

Johan Idema, an arts consultant who specializes in “innovation management,” attributes the decline in concert attendance and retention to the ritualized and highly formal nature of the classical music concert, with the notion that “the imagination and drama of the music is often at odds with the presentation.”1 The classical music world habitually turns first to the repertoire as a source of modernization and diversity within concert presentation. Innovation and change within the music itself, in response to changing times, is one of classical music’s strengths. While this is a necessary and valid endeavor, it is perhaps not only the music itself that needs renovation.

Idema directly challenges this fixed mindset:

How many of us – composers, performers and presenters – truly look beyond the music to think about how we should offer this music to our audiences? Most of us have come to regard the way of the standard concert formula as the only way. This is remarkable, since this is the very attitude we must directly challenge if we want to reinvigorate live classical music.2

Though there are numerous standards and traditions within the classical music world that need to be challenged and assessed in order for us to move forward (including inequities which have become ingrained in the now centuries old tradition), the following research will focus solely on the role that diversifying the concert format/presentation of a choral concert through staging can have on its ability to attract and retain a more diverse audience. The intention of this paper is not an attempt to offer a definitive answer as to the validity of staging in choral performance, but rather to begin to examine what is currently taking place within the field.

Interviews with conductors and stage directors will investigate examples of previously staged performances from both collegiate and professional choral ensembles. In addition, a survey of

1 Idema, Johan. Present!: Rethinking Live Classical Music. Muziek Centrum Nederland, 2012, p. 42. 2 Idema, Johan. Present!: Rethinking Live Classical Music. Muziek Centrum Nederland, 2012, pp. 40-41.

2 logistical considerations will provide a guide for conductors interested in exploring this method of presentation with their own ensembles.

Visualization can be a method of allowing performers to bring the music to life in new ways and further connect audiences with their intended vision. As professionals, many of us would argue for the mass appeal of classical music and its continued value in today’s society.

How then do we go about exposing this repertoire to new audiences and, perhaps even more importantly, how do we ensure that our patrons find a source of connection to what we do, and in which they are willing to continue to invest?

“If we want to (re)connect audiences with classical music, we need to consciously include and design all of the building blocks that make for a compelling and ultimately memorable experience.”3 – John Idema

3 Idema, Johan. Present!: Rethinking Live Classical Music. Muziek Centrum Nederland, 2012, p. 44.

3 CHAPTER 2

DEFINING CHORAL THEATER

Introduction

The presentation of choral music within a concert setting is inherently a performative act.

It may therefore be beneficial to take a step back and define staged choral performance (as distinct from traditional choral performance), which can be described as: the inclusion of such things as blocking (varied positioning of actors on stage using gestures and movements), scenic background, props, costumes, and lighting. Vince Peterson, artistic director of Choral

Chameleon, a Brooklyn-based ensemble, uses the broader terms choral theater, or choral storytelling, to describe the method of performance.4 The term “Choral Theater” can be useful

(for the purposes of this discussion) in differentiating the practice from other forms of choral singing and movement. However, the concept of choral singing and movement is also often associated with forms of popular music, music which is therefore more closely related to show choir or Broadway. This paper will therefore use the term Choral Theater to delineate movement and staging for choral music within a more Western classical music tradition.

Dramatic staging of traditional choral literature as discussed in this document is a comparatively recent phenomenon within the history of choral music. Staged productions of sacred oratorios, particularly those of Handel and J.S. Bach, which have inherent connections with more dramatic forms such as opera, have been in practice since the eighteenth century.5

Though the influence of these genres on modern staged choral performance is apparent, dramatization and staging of works which either feature a choir or are written entirely for choral ensemble are more accurate representatives of the current practice. “Choralography,” another

4 Malafronte, Judith. “The Emerging Art of Choral Theater.” Chorus America, 23 March 2017, p. 1. 5 Malafronte, Judith. “The Emerging Art of Choral Theater.” Chorus America, 23 March 2017, p. 3.

4 term often associated with the practice, was coined by conductor Frank Pooler in the mid-1970’s to describe early experiments with rudimentary staging.6

There is quite a wide spectrum of possibilities for the use of movement and staging in choral performance. For the purposes of discussion these can be broken into three overarching categories: added movement that manipulates spatial relationships between audience and performers; added movement with the intention of enhancing the narrative or drama of a piece; and movement or blocking for the singers that was intended by the composer. The ensuing performance examples will focus on the latter two categories. What ultimately distinguishes these forms from purely spatial blocking, is the added movement or staging is dramatic or narrative in its intent.

The connection between physical movement and music has existed for centuries and the associations between dance and choral music are inevitably multifaceted. It is not the intended purpose of this document to attempt to chart their history or various permutations. The aim is to provide a framework for interpretation as to why this trend has emerged and the direction that it may take in the future.

Motivation for Research

According to the most recent study of U.S. Trends in Arts Attendance and Literary

Reading by the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA), attendance of classical music performances in America has declined by approximately 2.3% over the past five years.7 The

6 Pooler, Frank. Choralography: An Experience in Sound and Movement Unknown Binding. Walton Music Corp., 1975. 7 United States, Congress, NEA Office of Research and Analysis. “U.S. Trends in Arts Attendance and Literary Reading: 2002-2017 A First Look at Results from the 2017 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts.” 2018, pp. 7– 10.

5 study, which has tracked performing arts attendance figures since 1982, reports that 8.6% of U.S. adults attended a classical music event in 2017 as compared to 11.6% in 2002, showing an overall steady decline throughout the sixteen-year period. Classical music is the only one of the eight performing arts categories defined by the SPPA review to have a negative rate of percentage change over the 5-year period.8 It should also be noted that all performing arts categories, apart from “Dance performances other than ballet” suffered in attendance between

2002-2017. The report presents an obvious need for change in order to counteract the continuation of an undesirable trajectory.

In his book Present! – Rethinking Live Classical Music, author Johan Idema introduces a series of forty different cases showcasing innovation in the concert format and presentation of classical music across Europe and The United States. Idema’s premise is that in order to bring more people into the concert hall, “We must develop more new and challenging ways of truly connecting the music with its audience.”9 He emphasizes the notion that change and innovation are required of any business that hopes to succeed in the long term, but a reality which the classical music world often seems resistant to acknowledge. Classical music professionals often focus exclusively on musical selection and programming in an effort to modernize their concert series and attract new listeners. While diversity of musical selections is a necessary component of progress in modern performance, Idema stresses the need to reconsider the formulaic and ritualized practices inherent in the concert experience itself. The cases that Idema presents offer insight into the variety of methods that classical music ensembles are using to vary their

8 United States, Congress, NEA Office of Research and Analysis. “U.S. Trends in Arts Attendance and Literary Reading: 2002-2017 A First Look at Results from the 2017 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts.” 9 Idema, Johan. Present!: Rethinking Live Classical Music. Muziek Centrum Nederland, 2012.

6 approach to the music-performer-audience relationship within live performance. He specifically discusses the inclusion of theatrical or choreographed elements in performance, stating that:

Visualization can also be an exciting way of bringing the music’s narrative to life – or conversely, visuals can be the inspiration for new music. By making classical music a more reflective experience, audiences can explore its spatial and spiritual dimension more profoundly.10

The crux of the issue presented by the SPPA review and Idema is that the current systematic nature of the traditional format of classical music performance does not connect with modern audiences as it may have in previous generations. Music critics have been proclaiming the “death of classical music” for decades now, and though this potentially hyperbolic sentiment has yet to come to fruition, there is an obvious need for innovation if the classical music industry wishes to show its relevance in today’s world. John C. Tibetts acknowledges the fear that generations of composers and performers have had concerning the existence and longevity of their art form but is equally adamant that “the means and opportunities for engaging audiences remain today as wide and limitless as the tools of media and the human imagination.”11

The objective of this study is to examine the potential applications of research and innovation in the performance of classical music, specifically as it pertains to the staging of choral works. The addition of performative theatrical elements such as staging to choral performance is only one example of the multitude of ways to reinvent the social and cultural structures surrounding the performance and consumption of classical music. As of yet, there is relatively little published writing on the subject.

10 Idema, Johan. Present!: Rethinking Live Classical Music. Muziek Centrum Nederland, 2012. 11 “Chapter 11: Engaging Audiences.” Performing Music History: Musicians Speak First-Hand about Music History and Performance, by John C. Tibbetts et al., Palgrave MacMillan, 2018, pp. 327–340.

7 Review of Literature

There is a small body of published writings on the tradition of staging sacred oratorio, from which the staging of other choral works is derived (or at least by which it has been inspired). Bettina Varwig’s 2014 article, “Beware the Lamb: Staging Bach Passions,” examines the modern practice of staging the Bach Passions. Varwig traces the history of staging practices throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from the early 1920s to Peter Sellars’ acclaimed staging of the St. Matthew Passion in 2010 with Simon Rattle, the Berlin

Philharmonic, and the Berlin Radio Choir. In her analysis Varwig argues, “Unlike a standard concert presentation, staged performances tend to confront audiences more immediately with the violent imagery and spiritual demands of the Passions, thereby continually renewing the dialogue between Bach’s works and later audiences.”12 Although the passion story is a familiar narrative in Western cultures, as audiences become further removed from the time in which these historical works were written, visualization of musical drama provides new ways to connect audiences with Bach’s music.

John Gruett’s dissertation, “Handel's Saul on Stage: The Validity and Viability of

Producing a Staged Dramatic Presentation of a Sacred Oratorio in a Church Edifice as a Non-

Traditional Setting Using Handel's Saul as a Working Production Model” studies the practice of staging Handel oratorio through the lens of the historical music drama tradition. Many twenty- first century churches and places of worship incorporate sung, spoken, or danced liturgical drama as a vital part of their ministry. During Handel’s time, his numerous sacred oratorios were performed sans staging, following established performance traditions of the time. The historical connections between opera and oratorio inspires the debate as to whether Handel would have

12 Varwig, Bettina. “Beware the Lamb: Staging Bach's Passions.” Twentieth-Century Music, vol. 11, no. 02, 2014, pp. 245.

8 approved of more theatrical presentations of these works. The narrative elements of sacred oratorio are perhaps more obvious than in other forms of choral literature, especially those which don’t include solo arias. Nonetheless, it is this same desire to enhance the dramatic qualities of a piece of music in order to engage listeners in new ways that conductors and directors cite as motivation for staged interpretations.

Regarding the staging of Handel’s oratorio, Jans Peter Jansen refers to its inclusion as

“experimental modernization”,13 removed from established performance practice. He notes that although this new practice may provide a “new look”, it also has the potential of negatively effecting the music itself: “The consequences of approaching oratorio as opera, however, are more far reaching, especially because many conductors tend to deal with eighteenth-century opera from the point of view of nineteenth- or twentieth-century opera.”14 The concern he expresses of letting the music speak for itself rather than superimposing drama onto it and in turn the audience, is shared by many who find the inclusion of such theatrical elements to be a distraction from the music. Greutt notes that whether Handel scholars (and audiences in a more general sense) prefer a staged vs. non-staged performance of these oratorios is dependent more upon, “the quality of the production's ability to capture the true sense of the drama, rather than whether or not the drama is staged.”15

Excluding research that has been done on the staging of sacred oratorio, most notably

Handel oratorio and Bach Passion settings, little has been written on the subject of staging in more traditional forms of choral music (i.e. choral music that isn’t directly rooted in opera or

13 Gruett, Jon David. “Handel's Saul on Stage: The Viability and Validity of Producing a Staged Dramatic Presentation of a Sacred Oratorio in a Church Edifice as a Non-Traditional Setting Using Handel's Saul as a Working Production Model.” University of Washington, 1999. 14 Jansen, Jens Peter. "Handel Studies: Oratorio versus Opera." American Choral Review 14.1 (1972): 42-48. 15 Ibid.

9 other dramatic forms). The only published article that addresses the topic is Judith Malafronte’s,

“The Emerging Art of Choral Theater,” published by Chorus America in March of 2017.16

Malafronte presents a synthesis of interviews with various conductors about their experiences with staging and their stance on its place within the choral art form. Conductors who are proponents of the inclusion of theatrical elements often cite as motivating factors the desire to connect with their existing audiences, to attract larger and more diverse audiences, and to assist in telling a story. A common argument among proponents of the added theatrical elements is that the growing amount of stimuli inundating twenty-first century audiences has changed how they experience and interact with the world around them and that classical music performance, therefore, needs to adapt accordingly: “In an age of fast-moving entertainment and growing competition for time and resources, the old way of doing things won’t stand up anymore.”17

Malafronte’s commentary objectively weighs many of the pros and cons that this method of presentation can subsequently have on both the performers and the music.

Performance reviews are the most numerous primary sources and provide insight into how these productions have been received from the audience’s perspective. In a landmark performance by The Los Angeles Master Chorale, under the direction of Grant Gershon and in collaboration with stage director Peter Sellars, the ensemble debuted a fully-staged production of

Orlando di Lasso’s Lagrime di San Pietro in October of 2016. Intricate staging for the 75-minute a cappella work required the singers perform entirely from memory. The entire score of the

Lagrime is a continuous web of dense ensemble counterpoint, which Gershon noted, “would create exciting opportunities to visualize the polyphony,” as opposed to traditional alternation

16 Malafronte, Judith. “The Emerging Art of Choral Theater.” Chorus America, 23 March 2017. 17 Ibid.

10 between solo and homophonic choral textures.18 Mark Swed, music critic for the Los Angeles

Times, commented on the effectiveness of Sellars’ staging to shift and color the dramatic focus of Lasso’s music in new ways:

Jesus has the last scathing word: ‘I have experienced such ingratitude from you.’ But Sellars allows us to hear it as being spoken in love, not anger. Members of the chorus, up from their chairs, hug one another. Gershon is among them. Di Lasso’s wandering harmonies have somehow wandered into our own. Sorrow and bitterness are replaced by awe.19

In October of 2016, Simon Halsey and the Rundfunkchor Berlin, under the stage direction of Jochen Sandig, performed a staged version of Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, in a performance titled “Human Requiem” (a nod to the composer’s intended conception of the piece). In their performance the choir walked in and among the audience, creating a fully immersive aural experience. The performance space itself was dynamic, as the audience (not seated in chairs, but standing or seated on the ground) moved around the room in an organic manner to make way for the singers; the space shifted and reacted to the performers. “As the

Requiem ended in pitch darkness with the chorus encircled around the outer edge of the entire room, the music flowed over the audience with unusual sensorial clarity. Despite some über- democratic gestures, the production provided an affecting modern vehicle for Brahms' melancholy reflection on the nature of human existence.”20

In 2014, the John Alexander Singers, directed by John Alexander, premiered The Radio

Hour, by Jake Heggie, (co-commissioned with Conspirare and the Philadelphia Singers) which

“uses a silent actress to portray Nora, a woman nudged out of an emotional funk by music she

18 May, Thomas. “A Saint's Remorse: Lasso's High Renaissance Masterpiece.” Lamasterchorale.org, 2019. 19 Swed, Mark. “Review: Why Music from 1594 Still Moves Us in 2016: The Deep Meaning of 'Tears of St. Peter'.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 1 November 2016, www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-sellars-master-chorale-review-20161101-story.html. 20 Schmid, Rebecca. “The Rundfunkchor Berlin Plunges Into Brahms At The Radialsystem.” NPR, NPR, 18 February 2012, www.npr.org/sections/nprberlinblog/2012/02/18/147049408/the-rundfunkchor-berlin-plunges-into- brahms-at-the-radialsystem.

11 hears on the radio and by her own scattered thoughts.”21 The work is considered to be the first of its kind: a “choral opera.” The Singers played the role of the Radio as well as Nora’s own Inner

Monologue, shifting abruptly between the two dimensions and interacting directly with the main character, Nora. The premiere was staged by James R. Tauli, who employed a variety of choreographed movements to pair with the variety of musical genres in Heggie’s score. Timothy

Mangan of the Orange County Register commented on the overall effect of the performance:

It all moved quickly and snazzily, the choir dancing, clapping and stomping on two levels, Nora (winningly portrayed by Eve Himmelheber) scampering freely about among them. A big part of the fun was watching the performers pull it off…the singers grabbed hold of their duties and dispatched them con gusto. It felt as if we had heard something truly new.22

In response to today’s modern audiences, conductors like Alexander find that “just standing there and moving our mouths” may no longer be enough, as “More and more, bringing people into the concert hall requires creative thought, using ideas from the theater and our sister arts fields that will make a more fulfilling experience for audiences.”23

21 Malafronte, Judith. “The Emerging Art of Choral Theater.” Chorus America, 23 March 2017, p. 1. 22 Mangan, Timothy. “Heggie's 'The Radio Hour' Works.” Orange County Register, Orange County Register, 19 May 2014, www.ocregister.com/2014/05/19/heggies-the-radio-hour-works/. 23 Malafronte, Judith. “The Emerging Art of Choral Theater.” Chorus America, 23 March 2017, p. 8.

12 CHAPTER 3

CASE STUDIES

Introduction

The following cases will provide a survey what is currently taking place in the field of

Choral Theater, presenting a variety of examples of previously staged performances from both collegiate and professional choral ensembles. Though there are numerous contemporary examples of the practice of staging applied to music throughout choral history, the scope of this study will cover only choral music of the twenty-first century. As much as possible, the cases have been chosen to represent diverse ensembles within both the academic and professional choral world. All the cases examined are of United States-based choirs. The research will not focus on the inherent differences (and subsequent effects), due to ensemble size, age/gender/cultural demographic, or professional vs. non-professional ensemble make up. While acoustical considerations are a significant factor in staging’s effect on both the singers and the music, it will also not be a focus of this research.

The cases presented offer a variety of approaches to reinventing the traditional choral concert experience through the inclusion of staging. Each example will be examined from performer, director, and audience perspectives. Information has been collected from a variety of sources, including interviews with conductors, stage directors, and performers, as well as audience reviews. Information about each of the conductors and stage directors interviewed, as well as the interview questions, can be found in the appendix.

Each example will provide information intended to give the reader insight into multiple aspects of the production process: ensemble make-up; production team; musical aspects of the works themselves; performance space; production/rehearsal timeline; examples of staging

13 choices; challenges presented by each piece/project; solutions found by those directing/conducting; and audience response. The following information should therefore be considered as an experience-based examination, rather than a scientific study.

14 Westminster Choir, Westminster Choir College (WCC)

Path of Miracles, Joby Talbot

Conductor: Dr. Joe Miller

Stage Director: John La Bouchadière

Ensemble: The Westminster Choir is a 46-voice mixed ensemble consisting of graduate and undergraduate students of Westminster Choir College (WCC) in Princeton, New Jersey.

Date: May 27 and 31, 2019 as a part of the Spoleto Festival USA

Performance venue: The Gailliard Center in Charleston, South Carolina

(Photo: Leigh Weber, dctheaterscene.com)

Path of Miracles, Joby Talbot’s best-known choral work, is an hour-long musical pilgrimage set for a 17-part unaccompanied ensemble of voices. The work is organized into four movements, each representing a significant staging post along the Camino Frances, the northern portion of the Camino de Santiago: Roncevalles, Burgos, Léon, and finally ending in Santiago.

The sense of travel or journey is ingrained in the stage direction found in Talbot’s original score.

15 The piece is infused with references to medieval texts, including the Codex Calixtinus and the fifteenth-century manuscript- Mirages de Santiago.24

The work begins with a slow glissando, a vocal effect based on the Bunun aboriginal

‘Pasibutbut’ from Taiwan,25 from the tenors and basses, who are directed to be offstage.26 This meditative introduction is followed by a dramatic exclamation of the Cult of St. James pilgrims’ hymn, Dum Pater Familias, sung by the full ensemble. For this particular performance, the ensemble began seated in and among the audience, with the tenors and basses appearing from the back of the house and slowly processing to the stage. At the Dum Pater Familias, the sopranos and altos rose suddenly from their seats along the aisle and walked to join the tenors and basses on stage.

The choir had previously performed the piece without movement earlier the same month and had three days of staging rehearsals in Princeton, NJ with La Bouchadière27 before beginning rehearsals in Charleston, a little over a week before the festival began. Scenery for the production was minimal with only a collection of variously sized rocks strewn about the stage.

Throughout the performance these rocks were carried by the singers, serving as an outward representation of the inner burdens and struggles each pilgrim brings with them (their reason for making the journey). The choir began the performance dressed in everyday street clothing of

24 Crouch, Gabriel. “Path of Miracles.” Tenebrae, Liner Notes, 2017, www.tenebrae-choir.com/wp content/uploads/2017/02/SIGCD471booket.pdf. 25 A leader begins with a low drone. As other voices join in, the drone rises in volume and pitch over an extended period of time, creating overtones as the voices move into different pitches at fluctuating rates. 26 These stage directions, which are included in Talbot’s original score, are for acoustical or spatial, rather than narrative, purposes. 27 The ensemble had previously worked with director John La Bouchardière for their 2014 performance of John Adam’s El Niño. In addition to his work with the Westminster Choir, La Bouchardière has experience in staging other choral/vocal chamber works, most notably his collaboration with British ensemble I Fagiolini for their 2007 film project staging Claudio Monteverdi’s fourth book of madrigals, The Full Monteverdi. Having sung as a chorister at Magdalen College, Oxford as a child, La Bouchardière is well-versed in the technical demands of singing.

16 vibrant colors and varying styles representative of their individual characters.28 Michael O’Brien of Post and Courier commented on how the synthesis of costuming and textual fragments in

Greek, Latin, Spanish, Basque, French, English, and German suggested “the occupants of a modern Babel.”29 Surtitles were used to translate and draw the viewers’ attention to the stage and away from the program translations. As the show progressed, the singers began to strip their outer garments to reveal more muted clothing in tones of gray, tan, and white as their travels began to transform them. Subtle changes in lighting throughout the performance mirrored the emotional and spiritual journey of Talbot’s music.

In reference to the dramatic elements that drew him to taking on the project proposed by

Miller, La Bouchadière stated, “[Path of Miracles] isn't a dramatic work, per se, but its principal subject is a journey and that's the kind of inherently narrative structure that lends itself to some sort of staging.”30 The lack of a dramatic libretto or literal narrative meant there was more that could be created and imagined on the part of the director; the travelers stories will not tell themselves. The Galliard Center, an 1800-seat concert hall with proscenium stage, naturally lent itself to a more theatrical presentation of the work as opposed to the sacred spaces for which the work was originally intended. Speaking of the unique challenges this venue presented, La

Bouchadière stated:

The chief difference between our version and any based on the stage directions in the score is that we are presenting the piece in a secular venue with a traditional stage/audience relationship, which is not predisposed to immersive theatre techniques and doesn't provide relevant iconography. However, there are things that a conventional proscenium arch theatre does well - narrative and action, in particular...31

28 La Bouchadière cited the work of Hieronymus Bosch as an influence for his visual conception of the piece. 29 O'Brien, Michael. “Review: ‘Path of Miracles’ a Transformative Musical Pilgrimage.” Post and Courier, 29 May 2019, www.postandcourier.com/spoleto/review-path-of-miracles-a- transformative-musical-pilgrimage/article_20b5e656-818a-11e9-a2f4-fb3f8180b761.html. 30 La Bouchadière, John. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. April 4, 2019. 31 Miller, Joe. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. Charleston, May 24, 2019.

17 In preparation for the first staging rehearsal La Bouchadière asked the singers to connect with the music not just as singers, but as acting performers, in developing their own backstories and character journeys. Each singer came prepared to share who their character was and why they had chosen to go on this journey. The piece was originally written as a commission for the vocal chamber group Tenebrae. The dense and challenging score is written in a mostly contrapuntal style, as seventeen virtuosic and soloistic lines, which La Bouchadière noted allowed “for a multitude of linear character journeys which coincide without sharing identical paths to the same destination.”32

The project was a time intensive undertaking which required the singers to spend several additional hours outside of the ensemble rehearsal schedule in order to quickly prepare and memorize such a difficult and elaborate piece of music. Galbraith of D.C. Theatre Scene praised the staged performance writing:

Joe Miller, and his famed Westminster Choir, has reimagined the art of a choir ‘concert,’ and, in the course of it, created before our eyes – for forty-one singers and an audience that filled the Galliard Auditorium – something of (their) own miracle… Joe Miller is a fearless artist. His bold leadership and trust in these young singers enabled his choristers to forego the ‘stand and deliver,’ score-bound habits of their genre and ‘walk with him’ on this special journey.33

Anne Sears’ article for the Rider News highlighted the effect that the experience had on the student performers and their growth as musicians:

Choir members agreed that performing Path of Miracles was one of the most demanding and rewarding experiences of their lives. Choir member Betsy Podsiadlo echoed that sentiment and said, “John La Bouchadière went above and beyond with each individual choir member to make sure every action we made was motivated, married to text and

32 La Bouchadière, John. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. April 4, 2019. 33 Galbraith, Susan. “Spoleto Festival USA 2019: Path of Miracles by The Westminster Choir.” DC Theatre Scene, 30 May 2019, dctheatrescene.com/2019/05/30/spoleto-festival-usa-2019-path-of-miracles-by-the-westminster- choir/.

18 meaningful to the audience. He showed us the future of choral music and opera: the abandonment of a wall between audience and performer.”34

34 Sears, Anne. “Westminster Choir Brings ‘Path of Miracles’ to Life.” Rider University, 8 July 2019, www.rider.edu/news/2019/06/16/westminster-choir-brings-path-miracles-life.

19 Anthracite Fields, Julia Wolfe

Conductor: Dr. Joe Miller

Stage Director: Doug Varone

Date: April 21 and 22, 2017

Ensemble(s): Westminster Choir and the Bang on a Can All-Stars35

Performance venue: Trenton, New Jersey’s historic Roebling Wireworks Factory

(Photo: StateoftheArtsNJ)

Julia Wolfe’s Anthracite Fields, awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2015, is an oratorio inspired by the history of the mining industry in the Northeastern Pennsylvania Coal

Region. The text is derived from a compilation of sources, including oral histories, interviews, geographical descriptions, a mining accident index, and political speeches. Performances also include scenography by Jeff Sugg, a frequent collaborator of Julia Wolfe’s.

35 Amplified instrumental sextet devoted to touring and recording the music of parent ensemble Bang on a Can.

20 Anthracite Fields is organized in five movements and begins with a recitation of the names of miners listed on a Pennsylvania Mining Accident Index. The second movement,

“Breaker Boys,” highlights the story of the many boys who were employed to work in the coal mines, removing debris from the excavated coal. The music is playful in nature, with children’s street rhymes, featuring a rhyme local to the anthracite region (Mickey Pick-Slate), and text from an interview with a former breaker boy. For the third movement, “Speech,” Wolfe uses the text from a political speech by John L. Lewis, head of the United Mine Workers. Bang on a Can All-

Stars guitarist, Mark Stewart, is the featured soloist, backed by the tenors and basses who repeat sections of the text for dramatic emphasis. The fourth movement, Flowers, presents a contrasting view of warmth and beauty of the community within the Anthracite region. The works’ final movement, Appliances, fast-forwards to modern day, presenting a list of activities which require power fueled by coal.

Prior to beginning work with Varone, Miller developed a conception of the piece based on Wolfe’s minimalistic tendencies, which he felt lent themselves to a more “structured” visualization. Although Varone had previously worked with singers, having staged multiple operas for the Metropolitan Opera and other companies throughout the country, Anthracite

Fields was his first choral focused project. The two spent time in the Roebling Factory, touring the space and talking about both Wolfe’s and Miller’s conception for the performance before

Varone began developing the staging. A stage, theatrical lighting, and projection screen had to be added to the space for the performance. Members of the choir were dressed in period costumes.

Along with the incorporation of staging and movement, the performance space itself also broke the traditional concert mold. John A. Roebling was the designer of the Brooklyn bridge, 36

36 “The Roebling's Sons Co.” The Roebling Museum, roeblingmuseum.org/ourstory/the-roeblings-sons-co/.

21 and his Trenton based factory produced steel wire for many of the country’s most significant bridges built during the early twentieth-century.37 Coal from the Anthracite regions of

Pennsylvania would have been used to help power many of the factories in New Jersey, including Roebling Wire Works, which has been out of use since 1974. The space was chosen as a part of Westminster Choir College’s Transforming Space project, which sought to explore how the arts can transform spaces. It wasn’t until after having chosen the venue that Miller decided a staged presentation of the work would best speak to an audience in that particular space. The parallels between the historical context of the music and the factory in which it was performed produced an environment that Miller referred to as a “cathedral to industry.”

In conjunction with the performance Westminster and ArtWorks, Trenton’s visual arts center, presented an art exhibit entitled “Transformations- Post-Industrial Trenton,” which according to curator Addison Vincent, sought to showcase artists from both the Trenton and

Northeast Pennsylvania regions to show:

…how post-industrial places like Trenton, just like coal country, can find beauty and dignity in these spaces, conjuring the humanity of the workers and families who animated these building and communities long ago, and how artists of all genres, can reanimate these communities and spaces in the present.38

An additional element of the Transforming Spaces project was an educational study conducted by Dr. Frank Abrahams (Associate Dean, Professor of Music Education at WCC) and

Matthew Shaftel (Former Dean of WCC) which sought incorporate an outreach component to the project, geared toward children from underserved populations in the Trenton area.39

37 The factory made some of the greatest contributions to Trenton's reputation as an industrial manufacturer, so crucial to the cities identity that "Trenton Makes, the World Takes" became its motto (prominently displayed on the Lower Trenton Bridge). 38 Aubrey, Dan. “Wolfe's 'Anthracite Fields' Fires up Trenton Cultural Scene.” Community News, 4 April 2017, communitynews.org/2017/03/24/wolfes-anthracite-fields-fires-up-trenton-cultural-scene/. 39 “Children from underserved populations attended a matinee performance, and inspired by the performance, transformed a space in their own school buildings into one that would be aesthetically and artistically significant. Framed in a lens of critical pedagogy, assessment data from participants were coded. Themes of collaboration,

22 In the second movement, Dufrene (dance soloist) and the basses of the ensemble were a main feature. With the basses encircling her, Whitney Dufrene’s40 enactment of Varone’s choreography mimicked the playful nature of playground games alluded to in the music. One of the students involved in the study remarked how Dufrene’s character helped them connect to the historical content of the text and empathize with the young workers, sharing that, “The highlights included: the “breaker boy” dancer who expressed the emotions of a painful life.”41 Miller noted how Varone’s staging for the third movement in particular, a straightforward and generally static presentation of the soloist and singers, had a powerful and dramatic effect when contrasted with the more active staging of the previous movement. Because of limited rehearsal time, and the challenging asymmetrical design of the music in conjunction with the addition of staging, memorization proved a challenging component of the project. As a solution, singers used books as props in sections of three of the five movements to assist them with the words.

Having been shown a video that explained the piece prior to attending the performance, another student from the survey commented on the synthesis of Wolfe’s music and the staging, saying: “The video in class sparked my interest, but the actual work was captivating because it repeated words over and over again with a story told through acting, and dancing. They told a meaningful story.”42 Building upon the narrative component within the music is an element of connection that Miller actively seeks to emphasize in his work, “I think story telling is a part of our lives and our culture, and I feel like that will continue to be that. I think people no matter if

communication, creativity, and critical thinking emerged. The authors concluded that the project fostered a critical consciousness that acknowledged the importance of community engagement and social justice.” 40 Dancer in the Doug Varone and Dancers company and featured soloist 41 Abrahams, Frank, and Matthew Shaftel. “Transforming Space – Cultivating the Imagination and Promoting Pedagogic Change.” Min-Ad: Israel Studies in Musicology Online, Materials of the First International Conference on Music Education in the Community “Traditions, Challenges and Innovations,” vol. 15, 2018. 42 Ibid.

23 they know classical music or not, they can connect to a story.”43 Miller also noted how audience response for the performance primarily referenced the staged, or visual, components:

When they would talk about the music, they would refer to things visually that happened on stage. So instead of just saying at this moment in the music, they would respond to what they saw. And that was overwhelming in our response. We kept hearing that. And as people would describe it, they would talk about what was happening on stage.44

43 Miller, Joe. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. January 7, 2020. 44 Ibid.

24 University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, CCM Chorale

Dark Star Requiem, Andrew Staniland

Conductor: Dr. Brett Scott

Stage Director: Audrey Chait

Ensemble: The CCM Chorale is an ensemble consisting of graduate and undergraduate conservatory students from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music

(CCM). Forty-seven singers from the larger ensemble were selected to take part in the performance.

Date: February 16, 2020

Performance venue: The University of Cincinnati’s Corbett Auditorium

(Photo: Audrey Chait)

Andrew Staniland’s Dark Star Requiem is an oratorio for four soloists, choir, string trio, piano, and percussion. The work came about as a commission from the Luminato Festival, in

Toronto, Canada, and Tapestry New Opera in 2010. The text is derived from a series of poems

25 by Jill Battson, which chart the history of HIV and AIDS and how the disease affected the lives of those who either suffered through it or loved someone living with the disease. The fourteen movements are all unified by a singular melodic and rhythmic fragment, the structure of which is derived from the sequence of numbers attributed to HIV-1 and HIV-2 by the International

Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses: 00.061.1.06.009. and 00.061.1.06.010.45

Battson’s poetry varies in form throughout the work; she employs haikus, ghazels, and free verse. Each movement is also narrated from the point of view of different people involved

(nuns, doctors, victims, and survivors), often in a cold, detached manner. Though each of the poems relates back to the central theme of the work, the disjunct nature of the texts consequently results in a lack of linear story line or narrative throughout the work. This informed Chait’s staging, which she approached with the intention of creating a sense of cohesiveness between each movement, while also attempting to humanize the unemotional character of the text through staging. The choir spent a total of six weeks of in preparation of the score, with staging rehearsals beginning a week prior to the performance. Since the musicians used their music for the majority of the performance, physical movements tended to be subtler in nature and were motivated primarily by the formations and actions of large groups, rather than individuals.

The initial premiere of the work used projections, though staging was implied as well.

Scott and Chait decided not to use projections, but rather traditional staging due to budgetary and time restrictions. Props were used to help lend a sense of cohesiveness to the work as a whole, but the significance or meaning of each prop varied depending on the context of the text in each movement. For example, black umbrellas were introduced in Movement 6, The Great Gale, the text of which uses the idea of a storm as a sensual metaphor for an erotic encounter. As the

45 “Dark Star Requiem: Canadian Music Centre: Centre De Musique Canadienne.” Canadian Music Centre | Centre De Musique Canadienne, www.musiccentre.ca/node/138842.

26 baritone soloist and tenors and basses of the choir sang of the impending storm, ensemble members began to open black umbrellas. In the following movement, Beauty Mark, the meaning of “umbrella” then took on a different shape: the soprano soloist assumed the role of the virus, in poetic form, taking over the body. She carried with her a red umbrella as she entered the stage.

Throughout the movement, more red umbrellas began to pop-up in various places throughout the choir, signifying the spread of the disease. The use of the prop as a symbolic representation in the proceeding movement, rather than literal, helped to connect one movement to the next.

Other aspects of the staging choices were motivated by both the difficulty of the music itself and the demands of adjusting to the performance space. For example, in movement 11,

Sentinel, the story is told from the perspective of the nuns who worked at the hospitals. Chait originally had the singers in a double line with the soprano soloist playing the role of the nun,

“inspecting” the singers as she walked up and down. This double line formation ultimately made it too difficult for the choir to hear one another in the larger space. As a solution, the ensemble was positioned on a section of choral risers and the soloist walked around the perimeter, which allowed for a similar effect.

One of the things that made this ensemble ideal for a staged performance of Dark Star

Requiem is the ensemble’s membership: two-thirds of the CCM Chorale being either Voice or

Musical Theater majors, many students were already experienced and comfortable with movement and staging, which eased the rehearsal process. Scott noted how the student make-up of the ensemble allowed them to put the production together efficiently with the limited amount of rehearsal time they had. He also expressed the effect that staging had in developing the

27 students understanding and experience of the piece, saying he felt a performance of a work as esoteric as Dark Star Requiem “required that type of approach.” 46

46 Scott, Brett. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. February 24, 2020.

28 University of Akron Chamber Choir

To the Hands, Caroline Shaw

Conductor and Stage Director: Dr. Marie Bucoy-Calavan

Ensemble: The University of Akron Chamber Choir is a 32-member, auditioned mixed choir comprised primarily of undergraduate music majors.

Date: October 2018

Performance venue: The production was intended to be taken on tour and fit in a variety of different spaces.

(Photo: Marie Bucoy-Calavan)

Caroline Shaw’s To the Hands is part of the Seven Responses commission project by The

Crossing, entitled, Seven Responses. The collection of seven pieces, each by a different composer, were intended as a twenty-first century response to Dietrich Buxtehude’s Membra

Jesu Nostri. Each cantata in Buxtehude’s work attempts to convey the suffering of Jesus on the cross, focusing on a specific part of the body: feet, knees, hands, side, chest, heart, and face.

Though Buxtehude’s cantata is used as a starting point, Shaw’s intention was for the work to then, “expand and color and break this language, as the piece’s core considerations, of the

29 suffering of those around the world seeking refuge, and of our role and responsibility in these global and local crises, gradually come into focus.”47 Shaw’s libretto is a mix of her own adaptations and poetic responses which relate to the plight of a refugee. Her sources include the text of Buxtehude’s cantata, Ad manus, from Zechariah 13:6, as well as global figures of internal displacement, sourced from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, and self-composed poetry, written in response to Emma Lazarus’ “The New Colossus,” which is inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.48 Shaw also derives melodic material from Buxtehude, including the “in medio manuum tuarum” (in the midst of your hands) theme introduced in the first movement.

Bucoy-Calavan sought to present movement that not only crafted a narrative but emphasized the musically cohesive elements of the score. Repeated gestures were used to highlight motive unity, which she cited as a way to visually connect audiences with features of the music that they may not have noticed aurally. Each time the “in medio manuum tuarum” theme appeared the singers were given a motion which focused attention to the palm of their hands. Bocuy-Calavan also expressed a desire to emphasize Shaw’s use of silence throughout the score through the staging. She found that these moments of silence were most effective without movement, that with the sudden stillness of the choir, the audience inevitably, “had no choice but to focus on the silence.”49

Another element of Shaw’s score that Bocuy-Calavan often used to her advantage were changes in vocal texture. When a section of the choir wasn’t singing, their movements became more involved. For example, movement one begins with the sopranos only, later joined by the

47 Shaw, Caroline. “Caroline Shaw: To the Hands” Program Notes, June 24, 2016. 48 Ibid. 49 Bucoy-Calavan, Marie. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. Akron, Ohio, December 11, 2019.

30 basses. The full choir doesn’t sing until further into the movement, which allowed Bocuy-

Calavan to give more active movements to the tenors and altos. She expressed wanting to show a sense of tension from the start, to set up the mood of the piece, which she conveyed through a tug-of-war action between tenors and altos, “to paint immediately for people what’s at hand, the main idea.”50

Apart from the movement, staging was minimal; no props or lighting effects were used for the performance, and costuming was limited, with singers in black t-shirts, jeans, and bare feet. The most difficult component of the project was the challenge of memorizing a difficult score. In the fifth movement in particular, a long series of numerical figures are spoken by the choir; the numbers source from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). In her program notes for the piece, Shaw writes that “Sometimes data is the cruelest and most honest poetry.”51 Bucoy-Calavan chose to visualize, and humanize, the statistics by having the choir form small clustered groups which slowly changed and morphed as singers moved from one formation to another, physicalizing the displacement as the numbers are listed off.

Bocuy-Calavan noted the impact that the rehearsal process and performance had on her students, especially those who were more reluctant and uncomfortable with movement or memorization. She expressed her gratitude for having students who were willing to take on the difficult task and the work that they put into the project. “I think that also took a lot of selling on my part. But once everything was learned all they wanted to do was be able to perform it and show it to people because they thought it was special.”52

50 Bucoy-Calavan, Marie. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. Akron, Ohio, December 11, 2019. 51 Shaw, Caroline. “Caroline Shaw: To the Hands” Program Notes, June 24, 2016. 52 Bucoy-Calavan, Marie. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. Akron, Ohio, December 11, 2019.

31 Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble

Considering Matthew Shepard, Craig Hella Johnson

Conductor: Craig Hella Johnson

Stage Director: Rod Caspers

Ensemble: Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble (VAE) is a Cincinnati-based professional chamber choir under the direction of Craig Hella Johnson. Thirty-four singers from the ensemble roster took part in the performance.

Date: May 23, 2019, as a part of the 2019 Cincinnati May Festival

Performance venue: The University of Cincinnati’s Corbett Auditorium

(Photo: VAE website)

Referred to as a “three-part fusion oratorio,”53 Craig Hella Johnson’s Considering

Matthew Shepard explores the life, death, and legacy of the Wyoming teenager who became the

53 Reich, Howard. “Profound Truths in 'Considering Matthew Shepard' at Ravinia.” Chicagotribune.com, Chicago Tribune, 12 Dec. 2018, www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/ct-ent-matthew-shepard-review-0914- story.html.

32 victim of a brutal anti-gay hate crime in October of 1998. The libretto features Lesléa Newman’s

“October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard,” as well as lyrics from Shepard's own journal entries, narratives from his friends and family, as well as statements written about his death, the picketing of his funeral, and a variety of sacred texts taken from sources that include the works of the German mystic Hildegard von Bingen, Rumi, Dante and the Old Testament. Johnson’s piece is a fusion of musical styles, described by the Chicago Tribune as “a stylistically free- ranging score that carried echoes of Leonard Bernstein and Samuel Barber but also old-fashioned hymnody and raw and cathartic blues.”54 The oratorio is structured into three parts: Prologue,

Passion, and Epilogue.

From its inception, Johnson felt that the piece would require more than a “stand-and- sing” presentation. Though it was not intended as a piece of musical theater or opera, he felt that it didn’t quite fit the mold of a “standard” choral piece and that some element of staging would help to tell the story. Johnson decided to reach out to Rod Caspers, with whom he had previously worked with at the University of Texas at Austin, to collaborate on the project. Caspers described the simplicity of their early experiments with staging, which began with a workshop performance of the piece in Austin, Texas. Caspers notes: “they were still on books and we had simply choral risers and a very, very minimal sized space and we had, I think a day and a half of rehearsal.”55 Since this initial workshopped version, Caspers has been brought in to direct performances of the piece throughout the country, and the staging has continued to evolve with each new production.

54 Reich, Howard. “Profound Truths in 'Considering Matthew Shepard' at Ravinia.” Chicagotribune.com, Chicago Tribune, 12 Dec. 2018, www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/ct-ent-matthew-shepard-review-0914- story.html. 55 Caspers, Rod. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. February 4, 2020.

33 Numerous elements of the current staging were developed in order to assist in clarifying the storyline. Casper explained that, “As it’s developed, it’s become much more staged and I feel the storytelling has gotten a lot clearer, because we’ve been able to use the full chorus either as a story element or as an environmental element or as a pressuring element, they play different roles.”56 One of the earliest concepts was the idea of using a plaid shirt as a physical manifestation of Matthew Shepard. Throughout the work, various singers are used to embody

Matthew; each dons the shirt before beginning to sing to symbolize the shift in character. With the rest of the ensemble in variations of all-black attire, the shirt helps visually to connect the soloist to Matthew’s character.

Another prop which has been used since the initial staged productions are three fence posts that symbolize the place where Matthew was left to die. Passion, which is fifteen movements in total, retells the events of Matthew’s death partly from the perspective of the fence that held Matthew as he lay dying. At the beginning of this middle section, the fence posts are brought on stage and assembled by the three “fence singers.”57 Each singer serves as a personification of the fence in a solo aria. In order to clarify this element of the piece, Caspers chose to extend this idea further by having each singer “physically touching a part of it, so they become almost an extension of the fence any time they’re down there singing.” The fence piece is then dismantled and carried off stage at the end of the Passion section.

Other aspects of the staging were intended to parallel what takes place in the music or to create an environment, rather than serving a narrative purpose. In movement 21, Stars, the choir converges on the risers, “in support of Matthew,”58 as he draws his last breath; an image of a

56 Caspers, Rod. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. February 4, 2020. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid.

34 starry sky is projected on the screen behind them. Caspers expressed his desire for non-musical elements of performance to be derived directly from the text so that the staging doesn’t “impose anything, and it can’t overshadow the text.”59 Images used to set the scene or reflect the text were projected on a screen that stood behind the ensemble: pictures of Matthew’s journal; blue skies; open plains; pictures of the killers; and protesters at his funeral. Use of props and costuming was otherwise minimal, with the choir dressed in black.

The rehearsal process took about two weeks in total with three rehearsals in the performance space prior to the concert. The choir memorized the almost two-hour long score.

Working within a pre-existing structure which has already been on the road and adapted to different venues has the added advantage of allowing the director to develop their own system of organization for more efficient rehearsals. Prior to the first staging rehearsal, singers were sent a pdf document with drawings of the stage. The drawings marked each singer’s positions for different scenes throughout the work (similar to the formation charts used in marching band), serving as the template, which was then modified some once they got into the space. The outlines were referred to throughout the rehearsal process allowing Casper to then explain the context of what takes place in each scene and guide the singers in their movements on the stage.

Though Caspers’ conception for the piece has remained generally intact with each iteration, elements of the staging are often modified in order to best suit both the performers and the performing venue. Caspers’ many opportunities to work on the production has given him the freedom to explore some of the more dramatic elements of the story and music. He noted that attempts were made on various occasions to experiment with showing more of the violence in the piece, but which he ultimately decided against: “I'd never want to take the audience's

59 Caspers, Rod. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. February 4, 2020.

35 participation…I want to engage their intellect, their imagination, their senses, rather than bombard them, but that's my thinking. So, for instance, I think if we got too literal at times, it detracts from it.”60

60 Caspers, Rod. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. February 4, 2020.

36 Verdigris Ensemble

the little match girl passion, David Lang

Conductor: Sam Brukhman

Choreographer: Katie Cooper

Ensemble(s): Verdigris Ensemble is a 16-voice, SATB professional choir based in Dallas, Texas.

The Avant Chamber Ballet is a professional dance company also based in Dallas, Texas. Twelve of the company’s dancers participated in the performance.

Date: December 7 and 8, 2018

Performance venue: Moody Performance Hall in Dallas, Texas

(Photo: Brandon Tijerina)

David Lang was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for his work, the little match girl passion. The piece was commissioned in 2007 by Carnegie Hall for the ensemble Theater of

Voices, directed by Paul Hillier. Lang’s text is derived from both sacred and secular sources, setting Danish poet and author, Hans Christian Andersen's story, “The Little Match Girl,” within

37 a structure meant to evoke Bach's Saint Matthew Passion. Lang interspersed Andersen's tale with his own interpretation of select crowd responses from Bach's Passion, translated into English.

With his juxtaposition of the Andersen fable and crowd reactions from the St. Matthew Passion,

Lang creates a commentary on humanity's response to those on the fringes of our society.

Mimicking Lang’s compositional voice, the movement, costumes, and lighting were minimal in their aesthetic: choir, dancers, and conductor were in bare feet and all black attire; tube lighting and old-fashioned lightbulbs hung from the rafters of an otherwise bare stage.

Black wooden benches were used to help shape the space for various scenes that members of the choir moved into place, allowing these simple actions to become part of the fabric of setting up the scene. Old-fashioned light bulbs were used to dramatic effect, brightening only when the match girl “lights” one of her matches, conjuring her imaginary visions and fantasies. “The whole idea of the lightbulb signifying life and death and rebirth” Brukhman noted, “was a really strong concept that we wanted to come across.”61

Avant Chamber Ballet and Verdigris Ensemble worked separately in their preparation until combined staging rehearsals began a week before the performance. Cooper’s choreography followed a fairly literal interpretation of the Andersen text; dancers acted out the story as it was being narrated by the singers. In movement two, it was terribly cold, as the little girl loses one of her shoes while running across the street to avoid being hit, Cooper directed dancers to act as cars while the little match girl weaved in between them.62

Staging for the choral ensemble was generally limited to subtle movements and static configurations, with the ensemble choosing not to memorize the piece for their performance.

Though choreographed entirely by Cooper, the two directors collaborated to find blocking and

61 Brukhman, Sam. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. May 25, 2019. 62 Soloist Juliann McAloon danced the titular character.

38 movement that worked well for the singers. Brukhman found the most effective combination of staging and music in movement eleven, Eli, as the singers formed a semi-circle surrounding the little match girl and her grandmother. The text for this movement is excerpted directly from the

Gospel according to Matthew, as Jesus cries out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Lang uses this single Aramaic word, “Eli,” to painfully accentuate the moment in the narrative in which the little girl sees a final vision of her late grandmother right before she herself passes away. The placement of the choir encircling the two characters created the sense of an alternate reality and added gravitas to the turning point in the characters story.

According to Brukhman, one of the most significant outcomes of the collaborative project was the effect that it had on the singers and the symbiotic relationship that formed between the two ensembles and mediums of performance. He noted the ways in which the choreography “challenged the singers in terms of their stage presence and acting” and how,

“seeing the dancing, empowered the singers to sing more emotionally and brought out more musicality; [the] dancers played off of the energy of the singers and vice versa.”63 Brukhman encouraged the singers to take on a more interactive role in telling the story: “You’re not just singers; you’re actors. You have to emote, and you have to interact and think about the context of the story rather than just singing the right notes.”64 Speaking of his reasoning and motivation for embarking on the collaborative project, Brukhman expressed that, “The whole mission of the ensemble, of Verdigris Ensemble, is to reach a wider spread of audiences through creative concert programming, unconventional use of space, and collaboration.”65 Eve Hill Angus’s

63 Brukhman, Sam. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. May 25, 2019. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid.

39 review of the performance for D Magazine praised the collaboration which she said was a first of its kind in Dallas:

In this piece that universalizes suffering through the story, the motifs of shivering and a match’s brief glow, the dancing gives a way into the narrative for those who may be less used to following the narrative arc of a choral work…Brukhman and his ensemble show themselves to be forward-thinking, interested in taking choral music to new places. The performance was, for many reasons, in its foray into a realm otherworldly and full of grief, transformative.66

66 Hill-Agnus, Eve. “Verdigris Ensemble and Avant Chamber Ballet Bring Pathos to The Little Match Girl Passion.” D Magazine, D Magazine, 10 December 2018, www.dmagazine.com/arts- entertainment/2018/12/verdigris-ensemble-and-avant-chamber-ballet-bring-pathos-to-the-little-match-girl-passion/.

40 The Crossing

Aniara: fragments of time and space

Conductor: Donald Nally

Director: Dan Hendriksson

Composer: Robert Maggio

Choreographer: Antti Silvennoinen

Ensemble(s): The Crossing, under the direction of Donald Nally, is a Philadelphia-based professional chamber choir dedicated to the performance of new music. Klockriketeatern is a nomad theatre company based in Helsinki, Finland. Sixteen members of The Crossing and two professional actors from Klockriketeatern participated in the performance.

Date: June 20, 2019

Performance venue: Christ Church Neighborhood House, in Philadelphia’s Old City

(Photo: John C. Hawthorne)

41 Aniara: fragments of time and space, exists in a genre of its own; the music and staging were conceived concurrently as a collaborative project between Nally, Hendriksson, and Maggio, developed over a three-year period. The libretto takes its inspiration from the epic poem by

Swedish Nobel laureate, Harry Martinson, the text of which considers the impermanence of culture and humanities’ place within the universe. It tells the story of a spaceship carrying a community of people fleeing earth toward the constellation Lyra after earth has been irrevocably polluted and destroyed by humans and nuclear warfare. Described by The Crossing as a “choral- theater work,” the piece combines theater and music to, “explore the relationship between disparate practices and genres of art, while asking questions about our relationship to one another, to Earth, and to the passage of time.”67 Maggio’s score is broken into seventeen movements and uses a variety of musical idioms and styles including minimalism, jazz, and

Kabuki.

“There’s no question about it, music is the starting point. This is a choral piece for theater,”68 says Hendriksson. From its inception, the intention of the project’s creators was to maintain focus on the choral ensemble, the center around which all other production elements would revolve. The production was an intense undertaking for the performers, requiring them to memorize the entirety of the 90-minute score and execute sections of intricate choreography.

The Scandinavian esthetic of Martinson’s text inspired Nally and Hendriksson to find an entirely Finnish creative team to execute their vision. Joonas Tikkanen, production designer, used drone footage of Icelandic landscapes, which was then digitally manipulated and projected onto the white flooring. Kinetic tube lighting fixtures that were hung above the stage moved and changed color, lowering in and out of the performance space to create varying shapes and

67 “Aniara: The Production.” Aniara: Fragments of Time and Space, 2019, aniara.crossingchoir.org/#production. 68 Ibid.

42 environments. Costumes, designed by Erika Turunen, consisted of long, all-white jackets with loosely draped sleeves of delicate billowy fabric, intentionally designed so that they did not evoke any particular time period or style; something not of our time.

Speaking of his approach to the choreography, Silvennoinen69 expressed, “I see my own role as choreographer as a sort of mediator between the music and Dan Henriksson’s text and direction…it’s my goal to help Dan translate his visions into movement which in turn supports and elevates Robert Maggio’s music yet into another level.”70 He describes his choice of movement as not a attempt to create a dance piece, but rather, “a bodily frame to the music and storytelling. The key elements include round movements, diagonals, strong rooting in the earth, round-shaped routes in the space, using the whole space and taking advantage of it.”71 Many of

The Crossing’s singers have master’s degrees in Voice and are still actively involved in opera, giving them a natural advantage when it came to incorporating movement and working with a choreographer. Nally noted, however, that “some people are better movers than others and acknowledging that so that the piece, while it challenges people, it magnifies their strengths but not their weaknesses,” was a consideration throughout the rehearsal process.

Silvennoinen also had a performing role in the production as the Mima. Despite the fact that it is not actually a human being, but rather a bodily expression of the artificial intelligence system created by the humans on board, the Mima is a central character in the story; it is meant to provide the human passengers with comforting images of Earth. In an example of the deeply collaborative nature of the project, Silvennoinen’s background in Beijing Opera-style dance helped inspire Maggio’s writing for the Mima character: Kabuki-style music. Nally’s desire was

69 Finnish choreographer and artistic director of the Wusheng Company, which specializes in Beijing opera style technique 70 “Aniara: The Production.” Aniara: Fragments of Time and Space, 2019, aniara.crossingchoir.org/#production. 71 Ibid.

43 for something that “sounded ancient,”72 a contrast to the overall musical esthetic of the work.

The use of a more percussive, Kabuki-inspired sound was described by Maggio as “ritualistic and formal — and a departure from the rest of the piece.”73

Christ Church Neighborhood House is an open space venue (former basketball court turned theater), the unique design of which allowed the creative team the flexibility to craft an environment that was conducive to their overall production design. Audience members were seated along both sides of the stage, in an alley-type set up, which gave the illusion of the audience being on the ship with the performers and allowed for a more immersive display. Nally noted how many in the audience, not used to being in such close proximity to the musicians and the sound, seemed overwhelmed by the intensity of the experience, saying:

Not only do I feel that the piece of music, the libretto, and the staging are all independently of very, very high quality, the visceral experience of having [the singers] so close and at times feeling like it’s a choir and at times feeling like you’re dealing with one person who’s standing right in front of you, who’s voice obviously is amplified to you because they’re standing right in front of you, is such a unique and compelling experience.74

Gail Obenreder of the Broad Street Review referred to the production as “enigmatic, melismatic, and visually stunning.”75 The production made its European debut later that same year in the Netherlands and Finland. After the Philadelphia premiere, Obrenreder noted how the work might benefit from a change in venue: “An intimate venue like Neighborhood House does not perfectly serve this production, so it will be revealing for this work to be in venues that allow

72 Stearns, David Patrick. “Trippy Space-Travel Production 'Aniara' Will World-Premiere in Philly This Week, Then Play Europe.” Https://Www.inquirer.com, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 18 June 2019, www.inquirer.com/arts/crossing-choir-philadelphia-premiere-aniara-robert-maggio-klockriketeatern-20190618.html. 73 “Aniara: The Production.” Aniara: Fragments of Time and Space, 2019, aniara.crossingchoir.org/#production. 74 Nally, Donald. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. January 23, 2020. 75 Obenreder, Gail. “The Crossing Presents 'Aniara'.” The Crossing Presents 'Aniara' | Broad Street Review, 24 June 2019, www.broadstreetreview.com/film/the-crossing-presents-aniara?fbclid=IwAR28u5f1L9oM- g5ryTHqHOPLHyFdIP1GDluerpRsoVrPxV4ea28WeGoOQmw#.

44 breathing room for both singers and the show’s arresting visual sweep.”76 Savon Sanomat’s review of the touring performance at the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki spoke of the synthesis of theatrical elements, “As a whole the piece is deeply touching and the staging is thoroughly considered and powerful…Klockriketeatern’s production as well as Maggio’s music absorb the spectator.”77

76 Obenreder, Gail. “The Crossing Presents 'Aniara'.” The Crossing Presents 'Aniara' | Broad Street Review, 24 June 2019, www.broadstreetreview.com/film/the-crossing-presents-aniara?fbclid=IwAR28u5f1L9oM- g5ryTHqHOPLHyFdIP1GDluerpRsoVrPxV4ea28WeGoOQmw#. 77 Sanomat, Savon. “Review: Aniara as Musical Composition Also Reflects Our Times.” Keskisuomalainen, 18 September 2019.

45 Fire in My Mouth, Julia Wolfe

Conductor: Jaap van Zweden

Stage Director: Anne Kauffman

Ensemble(s): The New York Philharmonic in conjunction with the women of The Crossing, directed by Donald Nally, and members of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, directed by Francisco J. Núñez. Thirty-six singers from The Crossing combined with 110 female singers from the Young People’s Chorus of New York for the performance. This was a particularly poignant choice as it gave voice to the exact number (146) of victims of the Triangle

Shirtwaist Factory fire.

Date: January 24, 2019

Performance venue: Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall

(Photo © 2019: The New York Philharmonic)

46 Julia Wolfe’s oratorio, Fire in My Mouth, was inspired by the Triangle Shirt Waist

Factory fire of 1911, where 146 garment workers, most of whom were immigrant women, were trapped and killed. Wolfe conceived of the title from garment worker and labor activist Clara

Lemlich Shavelson, who, when later recalling the activism of her youth said, “Ah, then I had fire in my mouth.”78 The work is one of a series of compositions in which Wolfe has explored

American labor history, including Steel Hammer and Anthracite Fields (discussed above). Wolfe draws upon archival research, crafting a libretto that comprises sources from oral histories, speeches, interviews, and folk songs. Broken into four movements (Immigration, Factory,

Protest, and Fire), the narrative follows the story of the young workers as they immigrate to the

United States find jobs in the garment factory industry; protest the unreasonable working conditions; and are ultimately killed in the tragic fire. As with Anthracite Fields, the musical work is paired with scenography in the form of projections, crafted by Sugg, to create a fully immersive aural and visual experience. Unlike her previous works, however, the premiere of

Fire in My Mouth also included staging elements which brought the performers out into the audience of David Geffen Hall.

As a professional choir, The Crossing is a project-based ensemble, which meant all group rehearsals and preparation for the performance were limited to approximately one week prior to the premiere. Due to the restricted rehearsal timeline, most of the stage direction and movement development took place before they were able to join the orchestra in the performance space.

Due to the size of David Geffen Hall, the much smaller vocal versus instrumental forces, and the movement involved, amplification was used for each of the singers from The Crossing.79 The

78 “World Premiere: Fire in My Mouth.” Red Poppy Music, 9 January 2014, juliawolfemusic.com/news/world-premiere-fire-in-my-mouth. 79 A majority of the piece was sung by The Crossing. The Young People’s Chorus doesn’t enter until the third movement and amplification was not necessary.

47 women were dressed in the long skirts, high-buttoned shirts, and aprons of traditional garment factory uniforms.

In addition to the video projections, Wolfe sought to conjure aural images through the mimicking of sounds that would have been heard in the factories: the sound of sewing machines, percussive string techniques (col legno), and a large variety of percussion instruments including whistles, crotales, maracas, and most notably, tailor’s shears. At the end of the second movement, “Factory,” the women pulled large shears from behind their backs and played them in unison, the physical presence of which concert reviewer Paul J. Pelkonen noted brought “a feeling of menace to the workers' oppressive conditions,”80 and what Jennifer Gersten of the San

Francisco Classical Voice said, “sounded an unmistakable call to arms.”81

The most dramatic moment of staging occurred in the third movement of the work,

“Protest.” As the women of The Crossing lined up directly in front of the audience, across the stage, the Young People’s Chorus made its first appearance, storming in from the back of the hall and planting themselves in the aisles. In reflecting upon what he referred to as the audience’s

“very visceral” reaction to the performance, Nally noted how the intensity of having the singers so close to the audience, without the barrier of the conductor between the audience and the performers, further enhanced the shock of Wolfe’s music: “I know for a fact that many of the audience felt very overwhelmed.”82 This divergence from the norms of performance standards and the use of David Geffen Hall in such a non-traditional manner, seized hold of many audience

80 Pelkonen, Paul J. “Concert Review: No Exits, No Escapes: The New York Philharmonic Unveils Fire in My Mouth.” Superconductor, 27 January 2019, super-conductor.blogspot.com/2019/01/concert- review-no-exits-no-escapes.html. 81 Gersten, Jennifer. “Julia Wolfe Conjures an Army of Scissor Sisters at the New York Philharmonic.” San Francisco Classical Voice, 29 January 2019, www.sfcv.org/reviews/new-york-philharmonic/julia-wolfe-conjures- an-army-of-scissor-sisters-at-the-new-york. 82 Nally, Donald. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. January 23, 2020.

48 members. David Hajdu of The Nation wrote of this particular feeling of being overwhelmed, most notably in the third movement, in his review of the premiere:

Additional voices emerge from the back of the concert hall, and we realize that more women are now marching forward, filling the aisles between the seats as they chant. Line by line, the exhortations in the text mount in urgency: “I want to shout like an American, I want to scream like an American…” The women are now turned to the left and the right, facing the members of the audience as they chant at full voice. I was quaking in my seat. To my right in the audience, one woman clutched both hands of the woman sitting next to her. Two rows in front of me, a man lowered his head onto the shoulder of his companion and turned his face away from the singers, as if they were too much to bear.83

Reviewer Xenia Hanusiak expressed a sense of the relentless intensity of Wolfe’s score in combination with the visual elements:

Her messaging is overwhelmingly depicted with a vigorous pen and dramatic large-scale staging. Both choices seek to create an experience that is alarmist and confrontational…The collective innocence and passions of their performance imparted a palpable presence. At times, I forgot that the orchestra existed.

83 Hajdu, David. “Julia Wolfe’s Haunting Elegy to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.” The Nation, 14 February 2019, https://www.thenation.com/article/julia-wolfes-haunting-elegy-to-the-triangle-shirtwaist-factory/.

49 CHAPTER 4

Opposing Viewpoints

Staging, as with any art form, is an aesthetic choice on the part of the production team and judgement of quality or merit of its inclusion is therefore a subjective opinion. Not everyone in the choral world is a proponent of including extra, non-musical elements such as staging to a choral performance. One of the central arguments against the Choral Theater practice is the potentially negative effect it may have on the music, articulated succinctly in Malafronte’s editorial: “Far from ‘powerful’ or ‘organic,’ the description some conductors would choose for theatrical presentation is ‘gimmicky.’ And they argue that a score-focused rehearsal process and traditional concert format produce superior musical results.”84 Achieving many elements of the

“ideal choral sound” (i.e. blend, collective resonance, unified articulations) becomes increasingly difficult to execute the more singers are asked to move outside of the traditional stand-and-sing format. Certain musical liberties can be taken as a soloist in order to account for complicated elements of staging and presentation. The inherent difficulties of then attempting to unify these traditionally strongly held musical characteristics across a large group of people means that certain elements may be sacrificed in the process. The vast majority of the choral repertoire within Western classical music often requires different techniques and asks for a different kind of sound than is required of even an opera chorus.

Many classical music specialists ascribe to the artistic belief that nothing should stand between the performer, the music, and the audience; if you were to place those three elements within a hierarchy, the music must always remain supreme. For those who have had experience and education in classical music, this may seem an exceptionally profound truth. Classical music

84 Malafronte, Judith. “The Emerging Art of Choral Theater.” Chorus America, 23 March 2017, p. 4.

50 is a traditionally aural artform that should speak for itself. This is a particularly common criticism when staging is added to music written without the intent of added performative elements. However, this is often not a commonly shared sentiment for the non-musician.

As with spoken language, if one is not fluent in its linguistic nuances and intricacies, although they may appreciate the inherent aural beauty of the words, they may fail to grasp the complexities that are easily understood by native speakers. For someone who has not had any classical music training, musical details which trained musicians readily identify can be lost in translation. If mass audience appeal is not the objective of the conductor or performing ensemble, then this is inconsequential. However, if their intention is to communicate with more diverse audiences and expand their influence, then more varied concert experiences that present classical music without the stigma of “you have to understand it in order to be able to enjoy it,” need to be considered. Perhaps Choral Theater can provide the opportunity to draw the listeners ear to important musical features of a piece.

For some audience members, the addition of staging and the effect it can have on their experience of the music and the singers’ ability to produce their best sound can seem like more of a distraction than a welcomed form of engagement. Critical reviews often express the concern that the addition of movement creates a lack of clarity in the sound. For example, NPR reporter

Rebecca Schmid observed that although the staging added intensity and drama to the listening experience of the Rundfunkchor Berlin’s presentation of the Brahms’ Requiem entitled, “Human

Requiem,” it came at a sacrifice to the choral sound: “…the proximity to individual ensemble members proved both a detriment to an even acoustical blend and a powerful means of reaching

51 the listener viscerally.”85 Schmid also noted how the experimental staging of the production resulted in a lack of clarity for both soloists and choir: “…the use of a children’s swing in the fifth movement caused the soprano soloist, ‘slight intonation problems and pinched vocal production.’86

Ultimately, the question is whether or not the effect that the staging can have in connecting with audiences in new and meaningful ways is worth the musical sacrifices that it may have on the music: Is the trade-off worth it in the long run? Director Kathleen Kelly believes so: “I think yes, pursuing this kind of thing inherently is going to destabilize some of the traditional really strongly held values…the kind of pristine product that you can have when everybody’s concentrated on one thing. But in my opinion, the payoff’s pretty big.” 87

John Idema writes, “‘Musicians and conductors are concerned with just reading parts correctly and creating a pristine sound,’ says conductor Kirstjan Järvi (the son of conductor

Neeme Järvi). This approach may lead to sublime performances that many enjoy, but also to what significantly more people have come to regard as a formal and passive concert experience.”

This is not to diminish the level of dedication and intense study required of classical music performers or the respect that directors and ensembles should have for the composer’s intentions and the music itself. However, for someone who is unfamiliar with the choral repertoire or typically does not attend choral concerts, staging may be a way draw them to the concert hall or performance space and engage with them in a manner that the music alone may not do. “It’s very hard for us to maybe wrap our minds around the possibility that excellent live performance is not

85 Schmid, Rebecca. “The Rundfunkchor Berlin Plunges Into Brahms At The Radialsystem.” NPR, NPR, 18 February 2012, www.npr.org/sections/nprberlinblog/2012/02/18/147049408/the-rundfunkchor-berlin-plunges-into- brahms-at-the-radialsystem 86 Ibid. 87 Kelly, Kathleen. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. February 5, 2020.

52 necessarily more desirable than the recorded performance just because it’s live,” says Kelly.

Choral Theater may provide an opportunity to show new audiences the joys of live choral music that can’t be experienced listening to a recording in the comfort of their own homes.

In his review of the premiere of Julia Wolfe’s Fire in My Mouth, New York Times critic

Anthony Tommasini was somewhat critical of the production’s multimedia elements, observing,

"There are stretches in which the music of Fire in my mouth assumes its place in the multimedia whole a little too well. I liked it most when Ms. Wolfe went for something musically visceral or extreme, as in the climactic episode of 'Protest.'"88 Though his concern is focused on a singular performance, Tommasini articulates the artistic challenges that those who choose this method of performance continually face:

How does a composer depict such a horrific story without melodrama? How to underscore the powerful old film footage and photos that this production projected over the orchestra — women dressed in ruffled shirts walking into factories; workers sitting at tables with sewing machines; the rubble of the decimated factory building — without the music coming across as mere soundtrack?89

Where does the balance lie between pushing the boundaries of the traditional classical music concert and making sure that any extramusical elements don’t overshadow the music itself? “If it’s not done thoughtfully, you can really turn people off,” says Miller, “if it feels gratuitous or it feels like pandering. It’s that aesthetic line.”90 Conductors such as Donald Nally ascribe to a more music-centric method of performance, striving to find, “a theatrical approach that is organic and layered, not imposed.”91

88 Tommasini, Anthony. “Review: With Protest and Fire, an Oratorio Mourns a Tragedy.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 January 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/arts/music/review-new-york-philharmonic- julia-wolfe.html. 89 Ibid. 90 Miller, Joe. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. January 7, 2020. 91 Malafronte, Judith. “The Emerging Art of Choral Theater.” Chorus America, 23 March 2017, p. 5.

53 Further exploration into the effectiveness of staging techniques, both from the audience and performer standpoint, is imperative. If we want audiences to be engaged with the art we present, then listening should be an active experience, allowing participates to engage using a variety of senses. Caspers’ personal philosophy of directing articulates this same sentiment:

“…any time that I take the thought process away from the audience and just hammer them with it, I think I've stepped over the line…I want to engage their intellect, their imagination, their senses, rather than bombard them.”

There are also numerous logistical challenges that come with the addition of extra musical features. Staged productions can often incur additional financial demands that aren’t typically a consideration for traditional choral concerts; lighting, amplification, costumes, props, and perhaps a non-traditional performing venue as well:

Site-specific productions in blank spaces can incur all kinds of charges you wouldn’t think of if you are used to renting churches or straightforward concert halls: chair-rental charges, charges for risers and platforms, vehicle rental for moving equipment around. Some venues in New York will charge you $300 a night just to use their projector, for example.92

Nonetheless, with advanced consideration and planning of such concerns can alleviate some of the stress and surprise that typically comes with trying this new method of presentation for the first time.

Though challenges are inevitable, staged performances can provide numerous opportunities for growth and creative exploration. For the director, staging can open new doors to collaborative possibilities and expressive potential. For the performer, the process of staging can be a new and profound method of connecting with a composition. For student performers in particular, staging presents an opportunity to develop movement and acting skills – skills which

92 Malafronte, Judith. “The Emerging Art of Choral Theater.” Chorus America, 23 March 2017, p. 5.

54 are not typically employed in more traditional forms of non-theatrically based classical music performance. For audience members, staging can enhance the listening experience and engage with music and the performers in new ways. The collaborative potential between classical music professionals and professionals in other the performative arts is a rich avenue to explore. If music can inspire visualizations that enhance the experience and consumption for performers and audiences, can visualization then become a method of inspiring new music?

55 CHAPTER 5

Introduction

The world of staging can present a variety of unexpected challenges and obstacles for conductors who choose to explore Choral Theater for the first time. Many of choral conductors have come from a training background rooted in classical music that did not include education in more theatrical disciplines. Those who were fortunate enough to have experience in these fields still often find themselves encountering setbacks and roadblocks when attempting to implement them with choral ensembles not traditionally asked to step outside their performative comfort zone. Additionally, large-scale collaborative projects have their own set of complications and considerations that can derail the rehearsal process if open communication and planning aren’t an essential part of the process. Kathleen Kelly encourages directors “to have those conversations early rather than late,” with all individuals involved in the project, “because what I tend to have seen is a series of big surprises at the beginning of the process and a series of disappointments as people have to scale their vision back.”93 Below is a non-exhaustive list of logistical aspects to be considered before embarking on a staged choral performance.

Conductor Preparation and Logistical Considerations

Clarify your mission

When ensembles and performers have a clear sense of their artistic mission, every aspect of their performance is informed by this purpose. The use of Choral Theater in performance can be a valuable tool for a variety of purposes. Are you seeking to appeal to different audiences?

93 Kelly, Kathleen. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. February 5, 2020.

56 Are you looking to provide varied educational opportunities to your students? Are you hoping to form collaborative relationships with other artists or organizations in your community?

Says Miller:

“I think the most important thing is to start and deeply think about your mission. Who is it you’re trying to serve? And I think if your ideas are deeply rooted in what you’re trying to do, then I think all other [aspects] will come into perspective…not everyone is versed in choral music, but everyone is versed in a mission or story or a cause. I feel like that’s the way that we are going to survive and build a platform for choral music in the 21st century.94

Clarity of purpose also has advantages that extend beyond the purely artistic concerns, such as finding funding and donors.

Miller explains:

If you have a real cause, a mission and you have a really good vision, then it’s lots easier to talk to people about giving money. If it’s just some esoteric, philosophical kind of thing, that becomes more difficult. But if you can draw into some deep mission about your organisation or your community, it’s a lot easier to get people on board and to build the kind of financial support that you need to do these types of projects.95

Collaboration

Collaboration is a core component of Choral Theater. As the modern world becomes increasingly multi-disciplinary, the arts are continually looked upon as an example of a wealth of possibilities. Willingness to collaborate with other directors and organizations can open new doors. In relation to his work with Verdigris Ensemble and other arts organizations in the Dallas area, Brukhman expressed “I can’t tell you how many opportunities have opened for our organizations here because we collaborate.”96

94 Miller, Joe. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. Charleston, May 24, 2019. 95 Ibid. 96 Brukhman, Sam. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. May 25, 2019.

57 Whether you are collaborating with a dance company or your seeking to bring in a director of choreographer to work directly with the singers, it is important to find a collaborative partner (or team) with whom you feel you can openly communicate. Says Kelly, “If you’ve got people who are deeply engaged and curious about how the other people do their craft and don’t perceive this like camps, but as co-pilots, then that’s a formula for success.”97 Even for experienced stage directors and choreographers, working with choirs and traditional choral music may be a new experience and will present unexpected challenges. Is the stage director familiar with the demands of singing a unison line vs. singing six-part polyphony, or singing with an orchestra vs. an entirely a cappella work? Kelly suggests finding a director to work with who is either musically knowledgeable or curious and interested in learning more about the requirements of good choral singing:

You want to find directors who are deeply involved in, or deeply engaged with how music gets made well. Not everybody comes to it from that place and not everybody’s curiosity level is at a premium. But I think it is easier to find those people than it ever has been.98

The ability to speak openly about your artistic conceptions as well as the more practical and musical considerations for both you and the ensemble is essential.

Younger generations of performers and audiences are beginning to expect to see these kinds of interdisciplinary experiences. Brukhman commented on how Verdigris’ collaborative projects often end up attracting people who have never attend a choral concert before:

When you put choral music within the framework of other interdisciplinary arts, whether that be staging, whether that be projections, whether that be collaborations with theatre companies, ballet companies, anything like that, you automatically get new audiences that end up loving it.99

97 Kelly, Kathleen. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. February 5, 2020. 98 Ibid. 99 Brukhman, Sam. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. May 25, 2019.

58 Repertoire Selection

What does the music require of the singers? How will that affect what the singers are, or are not, able to do in terms of movement/physical placement? What is your conception of the piece and the staging? Be prepared to make these priorities known to the director or choreographer from the beginning.

Budget

As previously stated, staged performances can incur charges well above the standard choral concert. Unexpected costs associated with production can easily add up and cause organizations to encounter financial trouble if unprepared. Nonetheless, Idema encourages directors to not let additional costs scare them away from new opportunities for growth: “At first, new practices are often difficult and costly, yet they are part of a necessary process in arriving at more feasible and lasting solutions.”100

Rehearsal Schedule

Allowing for adequate rehearsal time for singers to perform successfully a piece of music is already an innate and fundamental consideration for choral conductors as they devise a rehearsal schedule. This becomes significantly more complicated when one starts to add non- musical elements to a performance, specifically elements that require the singers to become involved. Especially when you then consider the needs and desires that come with having multiple people in charge, whether it be a conductor and stage director or an entire creative team, the time demands increase exponentially. “And that also goes back to planning,” says Kelly,

“because if there isn’t really a plan then everybody’s constantly worried about how much time they have.”101 Scheduling needs to accommodate adequate time to prepare the music, to develop

100 Idema, Johan. Present!: Rethinking Live Classical Music. Muziek Centrum Nederland, 2012. 101 Kelly, Kathleen. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. February 5, 2020.

59 the staging, and to make sure the choir has time to synthesize and execute both elements successfully. Projects where one element must take priority over the other because of inefficient scheduling can cause frustration and tension between directors.

Spending the prerequisite amount of time thinking through each new element of the performance and what it may entail in terms of both time and physical resources is critical.

Having a clear rehearsal plan laid out prior to the start of a project, even if it needs to be revised throughout the process, will alleviate some of the stress and minimize the number of surprises that arise when experimenting with Choral Theater for the first time.

Gershon says:

Sharing artistic responsibility with stage directors, scenic designers, and choreographers can be a difficult, time-consuming proposition. The blocking, choreography, and costuming change an ensemble’s rehearsal trajectory. Whereas the LAMC will schedule anywhere from four to nine rehearsals for a typical concert (including initial piano and onstage rehearsals), its staging of Lagrime di San Pietro required 27 rehearsals. “And that was barely enough,”102

The potential addition of memorization is another huge factor in rehearsal planning, especially for a musically challenging work. Working with professional ensembles as opposed to students can also play a role in budgetary concerns. The time intensive nature of Choral Theater will inevitably result in higher fees for professional singers. Whether working with a non- professional or professional organization, it is important to ask whether your singers are capable of memorizing the piece and, if so, how much additional time will need to be built into the schedule in order to accommodate this component. While student ensemble schedules may allow ample time for rehearsal and preparation, professional ensembles can incur memorization fees that pull more from the budget. Can the music or text be disguised as a prop in some way?

102 Malafronte, Judith. “The Emerging Art of Choral Theater.” Chorus America, 23 March 2017.

60 Though memorization is not an essential element for staging, having to hold music or use a music stand will affect movement and blocking.

Performance Space

First and foremost, does your performance space fit the requirements of the piece? Does it meet the needs of your budget, of your ensemble, of your intended vision, and of your audience? Miller often uses a performance space as inspiration for not only the staging, but the programming itself:

If I have a space I know I’m going for, then I let my programming be inspired by the space. But otherwise, more than likely, I find a piece or a composer or a cause that I want to do, and I start with the piece and then I match the space that it’s going to be in or if I’m touring with it, it needs to be something that will work in many spaces.103

Costuming

Will singers wear their normal concert attire? Is there room in the budget to pay for costuming, or are singers going to need to supply their own costumes? Costuming can potentially result in financial burdens on the singers, requiring them to buy something new to meet production needs.

Lighting

When singers are stationary on choral risers or platforms, lighting is a minimal concern.

However, lighting considerations can change drastically with Choral Theater. As singers begin to move around the space, will the audience be able to see them? Will pre-set lighting cues be adequate, or will a lighting technician be required at the switchboard during the performance?

Screen Monitors

Depending upon the complexity of the staging and the size of a performance space, screen monitors may be necessary in order for the choir to see the conductor. Additionally, are

103 Miller, Joe. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. Charleston, May 24, 2019.

61 super titles or projections necessary? Again, these elements may require another person to be present during performances in order to run the supertitles or projections.

Stage presence

Arguably, Choral Theater performances require more movement and acting from singers than traditional choral concerts. Most choral ensembles do not consider these skills when crafting their rosters:

A production like The Radio Hour requires singers to move around and emote in ways that are highly unusual for choral music. Alexander remarks that working on a staged version of David Lang’s little match girl passion in 2012 taught him the traditional choral audition process for his 140-voice, professional core chorus is not enough to find singers with these skills.104

How can you best play to the strengths of your singers? In reference to The Crossing’s

Aniara project, Nally expressed a desire to explore the project with a sense of curiosity and experimentation, rather than imposing any preexisting conceptions or connotations the term

“choral-theater” may imply for many people:

You actually can’t just take a choir and [say] now you’re just going to be actors, it actually doesn’t translate that way all that easily most of the time. So, I want to find out, if we’re going to walk this road chorally in the United States, I want to find out what that actually means.105

Program Notes

How much insight or information should the audience be given prior to the performance?

Many would argue against taking the imaginative or thought process away from audiences, a form of purely escapist entertainment. However, providing information that helps enrich the experience and understanding of the music can impact directly whether or not the audience connects with what we present. If we already offer our audiences program notes that include

104 Malafronte, Judith. “The Emerging Art of Choral Theater.” Chorus America, 23 March 2017. 105 “Aniara Introduction.” TheCrossingChoir, Four/Ten Media, 11 July 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=- fuatS4C6Qg.

62 information about the composer/composition or give text and translations, why not borrow a page from the Opera and Musical Theater world, and include a short explanation about the director’s concept and what to look for while listening and watching as well?

63 CHAPTER 6

Conclusions

The eight cases presented in this document illustrate a variety of possibilities for reinventing choral music performance through the use of staging. Collectively, they provide an opportunity to explore how new methods of presenting live classical music can provide experiences that are both relevant and approachable for contemporary audiences. Visualization allows performers to bring the music to life in new ways and connect with audiences. “My observation is that people in our field are indeed beginning to more readily ask the question:

What is a choral concert in 2020?” says Nally, “more people are asking these questions and coming to some conclusions that perhaps there’s a visual element.”106 By appealing to multiple senses,

As the boundaries between classical music, theater and dance continue to blur, we have increased opportunities to tell stories about classical music where they are told best: on stage, together with the music. By theatricalizing and choreographing the music, we can visualize its dramatic and kinetic potential in new and exciting ways. If it is done well, it reminds us that classical music has much more to offer us than only sound.107

Innovation and change regarding presentation and format manifests itself through all artistic mediums. Kathleen Kelly likens the staged choral music trend to Germany’s Regietheater movement, which started during the 1970s and 80s, giving the director control to change the composer’s original setting and location of an opera.108 “Entertainment has changed,” she continues, “and we are required to change with it. Do we sacrifice the value of great singing?

No! Never. Do we adapt to evolving cultural norms, challenge the prior conceived notions of the

106 Nally, Donald. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. January 23, 2020. 107 Idema, Johan. Present!: Rethinking Live Classical Music. Muziek Centrum Nederland, 2012. 108 Villecco, Tony. “When Worlds Collide: Traditional vs. Modern Operatic Staging.” Broome County Arts Council, 26 October 2018, broomearts.org/when-worlds-collide-traditional-vs-modern-operatic-staging/.

64 past? Yes!”109 Further, says Miller, “Yes, if you have the right intention, go for it. I think that we’re going to have to be great risk takers…[In order for] real choral music to really be a vibrant part of our culture and our community, then I think we’ve got to be willing to take those risks.”110

Whether or not a particular staging choice is in poor taste or detracts from the solemnity of the music will remain a highly subjective matter, our role is to actively question its role and purpose in performance. Nally encourages conductors to continually question the value and merit of their artistic choices, “Does the [piece] need staging and if so, why? What are [we] gaining out of it?”111 Asking questions is a concept that permeates and informs everything Nally does, from the music his choir performs to the methods in which they choose to engage with contemporary issues and the rest of the world “We don’t have the answers but if we can serve as journalists and ask the questions, then I feel that at least I am engaged.”112 What are the questions that we as choral directors and singers should be asking ourselves as we continue to craft programs and concert series? What are we doing to step outside of our own comfort zones in order to progress the art form and provide enriching the experiences for students/singers, audiences, and ourselves?

The intention of this research is not to prove or disprove a method of “best practice” for twenty-first century choral performance or assert that all future choral performances should all include elements of staging; nor is it to posit that more traditional forms of classical music presentation are no longer effective. The highly subjective nature of art and its relation to the

109 Villecco, Tony. “When Worlds Collide: Traditional vs. Modern Operatic Staging.” Broome County Arts Council, 26 October 2018, broomearts.org/when-worlds-collide-traditional-vs-modern-operatic-staging/. 110 Miller, Joe. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. January 7, 2020. 111 Nally, Donald. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. January 23, 2020. 112 Ibid.

65 artist and audience gives room for all methods of presentation. The goal is to inspire classical music professionals to explore how changes in the current concert format can engage audiences in potentially new and profound ways. Change is inevitable and classical music is a niche that will not appeal to everyone; however, how is our art form, the presentation of which has remained relatively static throughout centuries, going to respond if it is to remain relevant?

Johan Idema observes:

The world has changed radically and we along with it…how to present classical music in a time that greatly differs from the time when much of the music was created- along with the conventions behind its performance and presentation… If we, as composers, performers, and presenters, want to reinvigorate live classical music, we need to realize that concerts are about more than just music.113

The classical music industry is at a crossroads, particularly in the United States, and professionals within the field cannot continue to deny the necessary financial aspects of the music business. The music itself is not the root of the problem; however, art cannot exist in a vacuum. If we wish to sustain the work we do as conductors and choral organizations, funding, and along with it the need to consider the needs of the audiences we hope to serve, needs to be a part of the conversation. Are we looking to appeal to those who already come to our concerts and support our organizations or are we hoping to attract new audiences and serve the larger community? “We must find ways to resonate with our changing community that promote and celebrate our deep musical heritage, advancing new voices and connecting to the digital age,” says Miller. “If the choral art is to continue being a vital part of our culture, we must focus on ways to respond to current society.”114 How do we ensure that our patrons find a source of connection to what we do, in which they are willing to continue to invest?

113 Idema, Johan. Present!: Rethinking Live Classical Music. Muziek Centrum Nederland, 2012. 114 Miller, Joe. Interview with Author. Personal Interview. January 7, 2020.

66 “As performers and presenters, we need to find a way in which we not only try the new, but also apply the results in our long-term strategies,” Idema suggests. “A good start is to consider innovation as a vital part of our mission, and to treat it as an equal partner in music to composing, performing, and presenting.”115 Choral Theater will not appeal to some conductors and choirs for a variety of reasons, just as not every piece of music is suitable for every ensemble. Ultimately, what this research hopes to challenge is the notion that the traditional concert formula is the only acceptable model for the presentation of choral music. We must allow license for creativity within the standard concert format, expanding our concept of what a choral performance can look like. Innovation in concert format can provide meaningful experiences our audiences will want to continue to support.

115 Idema, Johan. Present!: Rethinking Live Classical Music. Muziek Centrum Nederland, 2012.

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71 APPENDIX

CONDUCTOR BIOGRAPHIES

Dr. Joe Miller

Joe Miller is conductor of two of America’s most renowned choral ensembles: the Westminster Choir and the Westminster Symphonic Choir. He is also director of choral activities at Westminster Choir College of Rider University. In addition to his responsibilities at Westminster, Dr. Miller is artistic director for choral activities for the renowned Spoleto Festival USA and director of the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir.

His 2019-2020 season with the Westminster Choir includes a concert tour of the western United States; a performance of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion at the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music’s Bach Festival 2020; a 100th Anniversary concert at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Dayton, Ohio, where the Westminster Choir was founded in 1920; concerts and broadcasts at its home in Princeton; and their annual residency at the Spoleto Festival U.S.A.

Recent seasons have included concert tours in Beijing, China and Spain, as well as participation in the World Symposium on Choral Music in Barcelona and groundbreaking performances of Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize winning Anthracite Fields at the historic Roebling WireWorks as part of Westminster’s Transforming Space project.

As conductor of the Westminster Symphonic Choir, Dr. Miller has collaborated with some of the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, earning him critical praise. The New York Times wrote about Symphonic Choir’s performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Cleveland Orchestra, “Joe Miller's Westminster Symphonic Choir was subtle when asked and powerful when turned loose.” Recent seasons have included performances with the Philharmoniker Berliner and Sir Simon Rattle; The Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin; and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela and Gustavo Dudamel.

Dr. Brett Scott

Brett Scott is Professor of Ensembles and Conducting at the UC College-Conservatory of Music, where he conducts the CCM Chorale, teaches conducting and literature at the graduate and undergraduate level, and is Music Director of Opera d’arte, CCM’s undergraduate opera company. Under his direction, the CCM Chorale released its first commercial recording, Lux Dei, through Ablaze Records, and has begun production of its second recording, focusing on sacred music for choir and electronics. Chorale has given multiple regional and world premieres by both American and international composers, including the 2015 revival performance of Dave Brubeck’s The Gates of Justice, the 2016 regional premiere of Abyssinian Mass by Wynton Marsalis and the North American premiere of Stabat Mater by Ivan Moody, and the 2018 North American premiere is Fredrick Sixten’s St. John Passion. In 2019 Chorale will give the American premiere of Andrew Staniland’s Dark Star Requiem and create the world premiere

72 recording of the English version of Sixten’s St. John Passion. Under his direction Opera d’arte has won numerous awards through the National Opera Association. His conducting students have on multiple occasions reached the finals of the ACDA graduate student conducting competition and have been regularly selected to participate in Chorus America masterclasses.

Prior to his appointment at the University of Cincinnati, Scott was Director of Choral Activities at the University of Rochester and Assistant Professor of Music at the Eastman School of Music. Comfortable in front of a wide range of ensembles, Scott currently directs Cincinnati’s Musica Sacraand is the Musical Director of Coro Volante, a vocal ensemble dedicated to the performance and recording of music by living composers. Under his direction the group has released two recordings through Ablaze records, with two more expected over the next year.

Scott has conducted and taught throughout the United States, Canada, Central America and Europe. An acknowledged expert on contemporary music, he is in demand internationally as a lecturer on Canadian music and has presented at several national and international conferences. He was editor of Chorus America’s Research Memorandum Series, an Associate Editor of NCCO’s The Choral Scholar, and is a contributor to the most recent Grove Dictionary of American Music. His authorized biography of composer, educator and soundscape activist R. Murray Schafer was published by Rowman and Littlefield in March of 2019.

Scott currently serves as President of the National Collegiate Choral Organization and a member of the jury for the American Choral Director Association’s Julius Hereford Prize.

Dr. Marie Bucoy-Calavan

Marie Bucoy-Calavan has conducted a diverse range of ensembles, from primary and secondary level choirs, to community, collegiate, and professional choruses and opera productions. Bucoy- Calavan finished her Bachelor of Arts in Music and Master of Music in Choral Conducting at California State University, Fullerton, serving as the Graduate Assistant Conductor of both the University Singers and Chamber Choir, under the direction and mentorship of Dr. Robert Istad. She completed her Doctorate of Musical Arts in Choral Conducting at University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, where she directed the University of Cincinnati Men’s Chorus and taught introductory courses and private lessons in conducting for undergraduate students.

She has prepared and performed with symphonic choruses under the batons of Carl St. Clair, Bramwell Tovey, John Williams, Eric Whitacre, Keith Lockhart, John Mauceri, Steven Mercurio, Louis Langrée, John Nelson, and John Alexander in distinguished venues, including Walt Disney Concert Hall, Hollywood Bowl, and the Liszt Academy in Budapest, Hungary. Bucoy-Calavan has continued her conducting training with Robert Porco, Mark Gibson, Craig Hella-Johnson, Patrick Dupré Quigley, Ragnar Bohlin, Jerry Blackstone, Paul Rardin, Jacques Lacombe, David Hayes, Arthur Fagan, William Dehning, and Elmer Thomas.

Bucoy-Calavan has conducted various opera performances, including California State University, Fullerton’s full production of Gaetano Donizetti’s Elixir of Love and University of

73 Cincinnati, College-Conservatory's Undergraduate Opera production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro.

Bucoy-Calavan also appears as a guest clinician and conductor for honor choirs and masterclasses, both regionally and nationally. Most recently, she was invited to serve a residency teaching conducting and American choral music at the Hochschule für Musik und Theatre in Munich, Germany. She served as the Assistant Conductor of the May Festival Chorus, the symphonic chorus for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Currently, in addition to her position as Director of Choral Studies at The University of Akron, Bucoy-Calavan is both Director of Akron Symphony Chorus and Artistic Director of Summit Choral Society, a choral organization that consists of the Masterworks Chorale and the four-choir Children’s Choir Program.

Craig Hella Johnson

Celebrated as one of the most influential voices in choral conducting in the United States, Craig Hella Johnson brings a depth of knowledge, deep artistic sensitivity, and rich imagination to his programs. As founder and Artistic Director of Conspirare, Johnson assembles some of the finest singers in the country to form a world-class, award-winning organization committed to creating dynamic choral art.

A distinctive aspect of Johnson’s programming is his signature "collage” style: through- composed programs that marry music and poetry in a seamless blend of sacred and secular, classical and popular, old and new. This programmatic style touched the hearts of viewers nationwide in the 2009 PBS special "A Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert,” whose accompanying CD release earned a Grammy® nomination for Best Classical Crossover Album – the fifth such honor of Johnson’s career. In addition to his work with Conspirare, Johnson also serves as Artistic Director of the Victoria Bach Festival, an annual event that draws musicians and critical praise from around the country.

Johnson’s distinctive style and commitment to the choral art have led him to be honored with several awards, including 2008 induction into the Austin Arts Hall of Fame and the 2009 Louis Botto Award for Innovative Action and Entrepreneurial Zeal, given by Chorus America.

Johnson served as Director of Choral Activities (1990-2001) at the University of Texas in Austin where he led the graduate program in conducting. He was artistic director of San Francisco- based Chanticleer (1998-1999) and has served as guest conductor with the Austin Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Santa Fe Symphony, Chicago’s Music of the Baroque, Berkshire Choral Festival, Taipei Male Choir, and Oregon Bach Festival.

A composer and arranger, Johnson works with G. Schirmer Publishing on the Craig Hella Johnson Schirmer Choral Series, featuring specially selected composers as well as some of his original compositions and arrangements. His works are also published by Alliance Music

74 Publications. Also an accomplished vocalist and pianist, he released his first solo CD Thorns on the Rose in 2008 on the Booker Music label.

A native of Minnesota, Johnson studied at St. Olaf College, the Juilliard School, and the University of Illinois and earned his doctorate at Yale University. As the recipient of a National Arts Fellowship, Johnson studied with Helmuth Rilling at the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart, Germany.

Sam Brukhman

Sam Brukhman enjoys a career as an entrepreneur and conductor. Sam was the former founder of the Vox Mousai Women's Choir, a collegiate women's choir focused on the exploration and performance of women's repertoire. Within 3 years of its’ founding at Westminster Choir College, the choir grew from 12 to 55 members. Under Sam's artistic direction, the choir collaborated with such artists as the Princeton Girlchoir, Paul Mealor, Mitos Andaya, and Ola Gjeilo. The choir premiered works by award-winning composer Alexander Leon, Ola Gjeilo, Emily Vite, and Michael Smith. During their December 2014 concert, Tundra, the Vox Mousai Women's Choir was joined by Ola Gjeilo to accompany his music in performance.

In 2013, Sam served as an assistant conductor of the Orchestra Institute of Napa Valley under Festival Del Sole. There, he was also the principal Russian translator for the Russian National Orchestra and led sectionals with Orchestra Institute students under the direction of principal instrumentalists in the Russian National Orchestra. He worked with such artists as Martin West, Ming Luke, Aleksei Bruni, Vladislav Lavrik, and Maxim Rubtsov.

During Theatre Aspen's 29th season in 2012, Brukhman served as the associate music director of the Theatre Aspen School Conservatory's show, All Shook Up. He was the assistant to artistic director, Paige Price, and assisted her with musical tasks throughout the season.

Sam was selected as a 2015 semi-finalist for the National ACDA Conducting Competition in Salt Lake City. Sam received his Bachelor of Music degree from Westminster Choir College and currently teaches at Brown Middle School in Forney, TX.

Donald Nally

Donald Nally is responsible for imagining, programming, commissioning, and conducting at The Crossing. He is also the director of choral organizations at Northwestern University where he holds the John W. Beattie Chair of Music. Donald has served as chorus master at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Welsh National Opera, Opera Philadelphia, and for many seasons at the Spoleto Festival in Italy. He has also served as music director of Cincinnati's Vocal Arts Ensemble, chorus master at The Chicago Bach Project, and guest conductor throughout Europe and the United States, most notably with the Grant Park Symphony Chorus, the Philharmonia Chorus (London), the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, and the Latvian State Choir (Riga).

75 Donald, with The Crossing, was the American Composers Forum 2017 Champion of New Music; he received the 2017 Michael Korn Founders Award from Chorus America. He is the only conductor to have two ensembles receive the Margaret Hillis Award for Excellence in Choral Music: in 2002 with the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia and in 2015 with The Crossing. Collaborations have included the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center, Mostly Mozart, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, National Sawdust, the Barnes Foundation, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), the American Composers Orchestra, and The Big Sky Conservatory in Montana where The Crossing holds an annual residency.

In addition to his work with The Crossing, Donald has recently been visiting resident artist at the Park Avenue Armory, music director of David Lang's 1000-voice Mile Long Opera on the High Line in Manhattan, and chorus master for the New York Philharmonic for world premieres of Julia Wolfe and David Lang. He has worked closely with Lang and Allora & Calzadilla on projects in Osaka, London, Edmonton, Cleveland, and Philadelphia.

76 DIRECTOR BIOGRAPHIES

John La Bouchardière

John La Bouchardière was born in Hampshire (UK) and began his musical studies as a chorister at Magdalen College, Oxford, continuing from his music degree with postgraduate study in opera production at The University of Birmingham.

A resident staff director at English National Opera, he collaborated with a wide variety of directors during his five years as an assistant, working for companies in the UK and abroad, including La Fenice, New Israeli Opera, l'Opéra National du Rhin, Teatro Liceu, Vlaamse Opera, Teatro Sao Carlos, l'Opéra de Zürich, and developing lasting collaborations with David Alden, Robert Carsen and Deborah Warner.

He has since created such opera productions as Rigoletto (Opera Holland Park), Eugene Onegin and Tamerlano (Scottish Opera), Don Giovanni (Operosa, Bulgaria), Semele (Scottish Opera and Florentine Opera, Milwaukee), Carmen (Opera Nordfjord, Norway), Giasone (Royal Academy of Music) and Idomeneo (Florentine Opera).

He achieved international recognition for The Full Monteverdi, his devised dramatization of Monteverdi's Fourth book of madrigals, performed by I Fagiolini for three years and winning a Royal Philarmonic Society Award in 2005.

Recent successes include a sensory production of Lera Auerbach's chamber opera, The Blind, for Lincoln Center Festival, New York, which the immersed public experienced wearing blindfolds, and the first full staging of John Adams’s El Niño for Spoleto Festival USA. He returned to Charleston in 2019 to create the first theatrical presentation of Joby Talbot's Path of Miracles and also directed Solomon's Knot in St John Passion at Bach Festival Leipzig.

John has worked as a teacher and director at Royal College of Music, Royal Academy of Music, Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, and Motley Theatre Design Course. Also working in film and television, John's critically acclaimed feature film, The Full Monteverdi, was distributed in cinemas, on television and on DVD. He also made a short film of Jean Françaix's L'Ode à la gastronomie and has created series for Sky Arts and the BBC.

Audrey Chait

Audrey Chait is a director, writer, and producer specializing in opera and multi-disciplinary performance art. Ms. Chait's 2019-2020 season includes The Bartered Bride at CCM, La fille du régiment at Winter Opera St. Louis, the world premiere of Marie Begins at Westminster Choir College, and The Magic Flute at Opera Las Vegas. Ms. Chait also joined the faculty of Northern Kentucky University in fall 2019.

Previous directing credits include Bolcom's Dinner at Eight, and the Bach St. John Passion, both at CCM, Scalia/Ginsburg with Opera North, The Magic Flute (Outreach Tour) at Kentucky

77 Opera, and La cenerentola at Opera Las Vegas. Her production of L’elisir d’amore at Winter Opera St. Louis in 2018 was nominated for a St. Louis Theater Critics Circle Award. Ms. Chait’s assistant director credits include Santa Fe Opera, the Glimmerglass Festival, Carnegie Hall, Portland Opera, and Opera Colorado.

In her prior career as a producer and stage manager, Ms. Chait specialized in large-scale site- specific theatrical projects, including several collaborations with On Site Opera: at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, the Cotton Club, and the Fabbri Mansion. She also oversaw a multi- venue TEDx conference produced at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As an administrator, she worked for two years at the Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts at the Juilliard School.

Ms. Chait holds a BA in Literary Arts from Brown University, where she studied playwriting and performance art with Erik Ehn. While at Brown, she was selected to travel to Berlin to meet with students in Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. In 2009, she directed her first opera and never looked back.

Rod Caspers

BA, Illinois State University, 1976; MFA, The University of Texas at Austin, 1984. Most recently Rod served as the Director of University Events at The University of Texas at Austin – creating and producing large-scale, special events. Prior to that he served as the Executive Director of Creative Services for The University of Texas System where he and his colleagues received five Lone Star Emmy Awards for creating and producing the PBS series, State of Tomorrow. He has taught and directed at the University of Wisconsin and The University of Texas at Austin. He has also worked in The University of Texas’ Office of University Relations where he received UT’s Margaret C. Berry Award for Outstanding Contribution to Student Life. Rod conducts directing and curriculum development workshops throughout the nation and on repeated occasions served as a guest artist/instructor for the Facing History and Ourselves Program in Switzerland, as well as in the Czech Republic. He has adjudicated the University of Texas Interscholastic League’s One-Act Play Contest for over twenty years, including the State Contests in Class 6-A, 4-A, 3-A and 1-A.

Rod has directed numerous productions, receiving a variety of nominations and awards (including directing awards for Big River, The Secret Garden and Honk!). While living in New York, Rod served as Associate Director for GreenPlays, creating and directing several new musicals and cabarets. For three seasons he stage managed the Radio City Christmas Spectacular Arena Tour starring the Rockettes. In 2011 he stage managed the Rockettes’ Shine production. In Texas he produced and directed the Texas Performing Arts Center’s 20th Anniversary Gala starring Tommy Tune, Linda Eder and The Broadway Tenors, as well as the We’re Texas Milestone Celebration featuring Judy Collins. Recently he staged Conspirare’s Considering Matthew Shepard. Additional productions that Rod has directed include Slammer for New York’s Fringe Festival, Assassins for The University of Texas, The Bat, Austin Lyric Opera’s new adaptation of Die Fledermaus, The Music Man for Zilker Theatre Productions and Into the Woods at Southwestern University. Rod also stage managed Jim Henson’s Musical World, a concert at Carnegie Hall with The New York Pops, The Muppets and the cast of Sesame Street

78 as well as the cast of Avenue Q. For the UT Dept. of Theatre and Dance Rod has produced and stage managed two new musicals: the first workshop of a new Larry Gatlin musical, Rosie – based on the life of Rosie the Riveter and Giant Steps, a new musical directed by Billy Porter. Rod wrote and staged Dear Donna, adapting the archive of letters Donna Reed received from service men during WWII, as well as a new adaptation of Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory. He also directed a new audience sing-along production of The Music Man at the Orpheum Theatre Center in Iowa.

Kathleen Kelly

KATHLEEN KELLY enjoys a dynamic musical life as a pianist, opera coach, conductor, teacher, and writer. Her projects and repertoire are wide-ranging and diverse. From Mozart to commissioned works by her peers, she is both deeply experienced in the classical vocal canon and engaged in new creation. Her 2019-20 season includes recital dates with mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton in Atlanta, San Francisco and London, conducting Opera Columbus’ opening night, the Ohio premiere of Juliana Hall’s BEYOND THE GUARDED GATE with soprano Jennifer Cresswell, and many new collaborations in Cincinnati, where she joined the opera faculty of the College-Conservatory of Music in 2018.

The first woman and first American named as Director of Musical Studies at the Vienna State Opera, Kathleen’s operatic experience is the backbone of her career. Trained at the San Francisco Opera, she joined the company’s music staff and moved from there to a long association with the Metropolitan Opera. She was head of music at Houston Grand Opera, and music director of the Berkshire Opera before moving to Vienna. Since returning to the USA in 2015, Kathleen has conducted at the Glimmerglass Festival, Wolf Trap Opera, Arizona Opera, El Paso Opera, Opera Columbus, the Merola Program, and the Alexandria Symphony, and has been a regular visiting coach for the prestigious young artist programs of Chicago Lyric Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera, and the Canadian Opera Company. Recently she joined the Cincinnati Opera to assist on the workshop of Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice, slated for a 2019 premiere with the Los Angeles Opera.

Kathleen’s recital career includes appearances at Weill Hall, Zankel Hall, the Kennedy Center, Vienna’s Musikverein, the Mahlersaal of the Vienna State Opera, the Neue Galerie, the Schwabacher Series in San Francisco, and the Tucson Desert Song Festival. Her recent collaboration with Jamie Barton has won wide acclaim, and her partners have included Christine Goerke, Michael Kelly, Troy Cook, Amber Wagner, Susan Graham, Albina Shagimuratova, Valentina Nafornita, Sorin Coliban, Joyce DiDonato, Ariana Strahl, Martha Guth, Karen Slack, and Jennifer Holloway. She has curated art song series for the Houston Grand Opera and the Vienna State Opera, and is currently involved in the creation of new song through Sparks and Wiry Cries’ songSLAM events.

In demand as a mentor of rising artists, Kathleen has given masterclasses and workshops across North America, among others at the University of Toronto, the Schulich School at McGill University, University of Cincinnati, Baylor University, Vanderbilt University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Michigan, the Peabody Conservatory, University of Washington,

79 Westminster Choir College, and Interlochen. She has served on the juries of the Wirth Prize at McGill University, the Dallas Opera Guild competition, the Kristin Lewis Foundation Scholarship auditions, the Cooper-Bing competition, and the regional Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions.

80 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

What are your opinions on the use of staging in choral music?

What do you see as being the advantages/disadvantages of its inclusion?

Are there certain pieces (genres/types) that you feel lend themselves to staging more than others?

Where do you see the future of choral performance?

Do you think staging will continue to find traction and relevance in the art form?

What other ways do you think the performance of choral/classical music needs to evolve in order to appeal to more diverse audiences?

What drew you to choosing a staged production?

What was your conception for the project?

Which staging elements did you feel were most effective?

What challenges did you face throughout the rehearsal process?

How did it effect the singer’s performance? Positively/negatively?

Do you have any sense of how the staging effected the audience’s experience/reception of the piece?

What are your feelings about the effectiveness of the production?

How did this experience influence your opinion on staging choral music?

*transcripts of interviews can be made available upon request.

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