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Saturday, July 26, 2008
Music Groups Perform Concerts at Different Churches
By Kate Mcgraw
For the Journal
The Desert Chorale got its start singing in the Sanctuario de Guadalupe. It left that venue when the Santuario was reconsecrated and taken over by the next-door church. Now the choral group moves between several venues each summer — and, surprisingly, many of those venues are churches.
In what remains of its 2008 season in Santa Fe, the Desert Chorale will perform its concert of music from the Tudors at Holy Faith Episcopal Church at 7 p.m. Monday, its "Northern Lights" program at Loretto Chapel at 8 p.m. Tuesday and a retrospective of the music of Ralph Vaughn Williams with the Santa Fe Symphony in Cristo Rey Church at 8 p.m. Aug. 8.
The Williams concert originally was slated for the Basilica Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi, but ongoing renovation work at the cathedral forced the move to Cristo Rey — a church with its own cultural beauty, Chorale interim marketing director Linda Milanesi noted.
DonScott Carpenter, general director of the Desert Chorale, said the use of churches even for secular music is not a difficult choice. For one thing, he said, churches are generally the right size for a Desert Chorale audience.
"We use the various (church) venues because they are acoustically pleasing, they are able to hold our audience capacity and, most important, they are part of our communities — Santa Fe, Taos, Albuquerque," Carpenter told the Journal.
Because the Chorale moves between the three cities during its season, the group's members, all professionals, are used to adjusting their sound to different venues anyway, so moving from church to church is not a big deal.
A church has built-in architectural appeal, and is a venue generally known to a lot of the community outside of its own members, he said. "We choose different locations so that we are easily accessible to our audiences, and we favor landmark buildings in order to offer our audiences glorious music in beautiful spaces."
At the Santa Fe Opera, churches have been a marvelous tool for stretching the vocal education of the many apprentices used each season, Apprentice Singers Program director David Holloway said.
During the opera season, apprentices are invited to sing during Sunday services in five churches around Santa Fe. Most of the singers participate because they love to sing, and they get paid a $125 stipend, he said. This summer, 41 of the 44 apprentices have sung in the churches.
The church project started more than 40 years ago with Holy Faith Episcopal Church, First Presbyterian Church and St. John United Methodist Church, Holloway said. He has directed the Apprentice Singers Program since 2000. Last summer, Lutheran Church of the Servant joined, and this summer, St. Bede's Episcopal Church became a part of the project.
Apprentices know about the Sunday church project before they arrive, so they bring selections with them for solos, Holloway said. He assigns the apprentices, taking into consideration who has to sing on Saturday night, and also considering specific requests if church music directors make them. Generally, the apprentice sings along with the crowd and then does his or her solo, having run through it with the organist sometime during the week, Holloway said.
At least one music director, Jerry Nelson at Holy Faith, works with Holloway and the potential singers to select ones who have prepared solos that will fit with the church's liturgical year readings, Holloway said. The churches pay the singers, generally asking church members to donate a singer the way they would donate flowers for a special occasion.
The church project gives the apprentices something to sing besides their work as understudies and in small parts in the operas. They perform fully staged scenes each August. This year's staged scenes programs are Aug. 8 and Aug. 17, and provide a chance for the local people to "give back" to the apprentices who have shown up on Sunday mornings at their churches, Holloway said. The apprentices also sing one concert of mostly sacred music in the Cathedral each summer — this year's concert was moved to Cristo Rey — and the solos they've sung a summer often appear on that concert, he said.
"The neat thing about the church solos is that it brings them into contact with really normal Santa Fe people," Holloway said. He remembers that pleasure from his own SFO apprentice days in 1966 and 1967. "I sang at First Presbyterian and as I recall I was paid a big $15," he said with a chuckle. Holloway said he goes to every church service every Sunday to hear his singers.
"I've got it pretty well timed. I slide in and out of the services but sometimes I get to stay at the last one and hear the sermon. I get to know all these people at the churches; that's what's great about it."
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