CSUB puts out call for golden voices
| Wednesday, Jan 11 2012 05:01 PM
Last Updated Monday, Jan 16 2012 12:50 PM
Community singers wanted
When: Rehearsals 6 to 9 p.m. Mondays (no meeting Jan. 16)
Where: Room 127 of the music building, Cal State Bakersfield, 9000 Stockdale Highway
Cost: Free to community members; $5 parking
Cal State Bakersfield's music department has hung out the "singers wanted" sign as it resumes rehearsals for an upcoming performance with the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra.
CSUB choral director Dr. Robert Provencio said he is inviting singers from the community to join the University Singers on Monday evenings for the winter quarter, which officially began Monday.
For the last three years, the CSUB singers have joined with the Bakersfield Masterworks Chorale to perform with the BSO in its annual symphonic choral music concert, usually held in March. This season, the BSO will present Johannes Brahms' "Ein deutsches Requiem" ("A German Requiem") one of the greatest masterworks of the choral repertoire.
Written over a number of years beginning in 1865, Brahms' "Requiem" is the composer's personal statement regarding prayers for the dead, probably inspired by the death of his mother. Instead of following other composers' models and writing a Roman Catholic requiem, which is a Mass for the dead, Brahms, who was not religious, wrote a non-liturgical work, setting various biblical texts to music focusing on the living instead of the dead. In a further departure from established tradition, Brahms used a German, instead of Latin, text, as a Catholic requiem would have required.
"He intended this work to be in the vernacular so at every moment the people would understand the beauty of the text," said CSUB choral director Robert Provencio.
Provencio said continuing in that same tradition of accessibility, the upcoming performance will be sung in an English translation, something Provencio said will encourage new arrivals in learning the score in a short span of time.
"It's such a powerful, powerful piece that I think people with a choral background would just love to sink their teeth into," Provencio said. "And that we're doing this in English will just facilitate that."
Provencio said there are currently 40 student singers in the choir. They will be joining forces with the Bakersfield Masterworks Chorale, currently at about 60 singers. How many is enough?
"It has to be a rich sound," said BSO conductor John Farrer, who will ultimately lead the combined chorus and orchestra. "There have to be good singers of sufficient numbers to sound rich and not thin."
Farrer said the "Requiem" depends heavily on tenors and basses -- tenors for the high tessitura, or average range of the notes, and the basses for a deep, profound sound, to help achieve a wide range of vocal color from very bright to somber and dark.
"We're not talking about a Baroque-era choir for the B-Minor Mass, but neither are we talking about a 19th century cast of thousands," Farrer said.
Provencio said singers in all parts are welcome, but he could use some tenors, who are currently in short supply. Rehearsals officially started on Monday with an introduction to the score, including listening to a recording. The choir will not meet this Monday in observance of the Martin Luther King holiday and will resume the following Monday. Provencio said community members are welcome to join the choir at that date if they can't participate sooner.
"We had been doing this since 1991," Provencio said. "But we had to stop because of budget cuts."
"But we're putting (community participation) back regardless of the budget," Provencio said.
The University Singers rehearsal runs from 6 to 9 p.m. in room 127 of the music building. Provencio said rehearsals will include practice in music reading as well as learning the score. While students must register for the class, community members do not have to, nor are there any fees other than parking, currently $5 a day. Provencio recommends carpooling or buying a campus parking pass.
