Graham Bier takes the podium for 'Carmina Burana' at th... https://www.readability.com/articles/wgk9r2ic
readingeagle.com
Graham Bier takes the podium for 'Carmina Burana' at the Miller Center for the Arts
by Susan L. Pena - Reading Eagle Correspondent • Jan. 11, 2016
If you go
Event: Reading Choral Society presents Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana.”
Where and when: Sunday at 6 p.m. in the Miller Center for the Arts, 4 N. Second St.
Tickets: $25 adults, $15 students. Call the Miller Center box office at 610-607-6270 or Reading Choral Society at 610-898-1939, or visit www.racc.edu/MillerCenter or www.readingchoral.org.
The Reading Choral Society will open its 140th season with a performance of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana," led by its new music director Graham Bier, Sunday at 6 p.m. in Reading Area Community College's Miller Center for the Arts.
Bier, who was RCS's interim music director after the departure of Peter Hopkins last December, was hired as music director on May 12. He said he was delighted to receive the phone call letting him know he had been chosen, and is looking forward to working with the choral society on "Carmina," which had already been scheduled by Hopkins.
The Orff work, which was composed in 1935, is based on a collection of 24 poems from a medieval collection of the same name, for a full chorus and a
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large orchestra with plenty of percussion. It was the first of a trilogy of pieces; the other two are "Catulli Carmina" and "Trionfo di Afrodite," but these are seldom performed. "Carmina Burana" is a staple of the choral repertoire, and is popular with audiences.
Orff planned it as a multi-media work, accompanied by dance, visual design and other theatrical elements, but in Sunday's performance, as in most others, it will be done in concert.
Bier said two select choirs from Exeter High School and Daniel Boone High School will join the choral society to create an ensemble of about 120 to 130 voices. They will be accompanied by two pianos (played by RCS accompanist Mary Bishop and Iris Blanco-Urgelles of Philadelphia) and a percussion ensemble put together by Willis Rapp, conductor of the Reading Pops Orchestra.
The score for this reduced orchestra was prepared in 1956 by Orff student Wilhelm Killmayer, with the authorization of the composer himself.
The tenor soloist for Sunday's concert will be Berks County resident Jarrod Miller, who will sing the famous "Olim lacus colueram" ("Once I swam in lakes") about the roast swan, one of the work's best-known sections.
The other two soloists are both coming from Philadelphia: Soprano Rachel Sterrenberg, a native of Georgia, is a Curtis Institute graduate and in her second year as an Emerging Artist with Opera Philadelphia; and bass Johnathan McCullough, originally from California, is in his second year at Curtis.
Bier said one of the challenges of directing "Carmina Burana" is finding the best pronunciation of the texts, which are written in secular medieval Latin (which is a bit different from ecclesiastical medieval Latin), Old German and Old French.
"There's scholarly disagreement about how these were pronounced," he said. "But there is the question of what Orff wanted We have the benefit of a recording that Orff was involved with."
This album was recorded in 1973 by Kurt Eichhorn and the Bavarian Radio Choir, and Orff advised him on many aspects of the performance. In
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addition, scholar Wilbur Skeels has published a five-page article, "Text Pronunciation in Carmina Burana," analyzing this recording. Bier said he based the choral society's pronunciation on this article.
"It's really different from a lot of the standard choral repertoire," he said. "Orff has used rhythmic language as the main driver rather than melodic and harmonic language. It's based on the poetry and it's a platform for the poetry."
He said the biggest challenge is the fact that Orff was very specific in marking articulations in the score - accents, staccatos, tenutos - and the piece demands that the choir do very percussive things, including quick and intricate rhythmic changes.
Bier, a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory of Music who earned his master's degree in ensemble singing at the University of York (U.K.); he is currently finishing a doctorate from the University of York. During his five years in England, he was assistant director of the academic chamber choir, The 24, and directed choral music in concerts throughout England and China. He produced a recording of new compositions and a live BBC Radio broadcast from York Minster. He was conductor of the University of York Concert Orchestra, music director of the Soon Amore Chamber Singers and the Bulmer Choir, and guest chorus master for the BBC Philharmonic in a broadcast with the Pet Shop Boys. He has also performed as a vocalist in Europe.
He is currently director of music at Bryn Athyn Cathedral in Montgomery County.
As the choral society's interim director, Bier led their April 26 performance of the Brahms Requiem in Sacred Heart Church in West Reading.
Email Susan L. Pena: [email protected].
Original URL: http://www.readingeagle.com/weekend/article/graham-bier-takes-the-podium- for-carmina-burana-at-the-miller-center-for-the-arts
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