2021 WINTER NEWLETTER: Backstage with the Maestro - Singing the Earth

During the fall of 2019, I sat down with a group of graduating Ecco singers to talk about their hopes for the future. The topic of climate change overshadowed the conversation: both literally, as the smoke from the Kincade Fire cast an eerie red glow across the sky, and figuratively, as the singers shared their frustration, fear, and anger with the changed world they were inheriting. That conversation would become the inspiration for PEBCC’s upcoming April 10 concert, Making History: Singing the Earth: a powerful virtual concert sharing stories of the earth in a time of unprecedented change.

Soon after that conversation, I reached out to the wonderful English composer Kerry Andrew. Not only is Kerry an incredible composer, experimental vocalist, and alt-folk musician, but her second novel, Skin, was just published by Penguin Books! I asked Kerry to write something for us on the theme of climate change and she came back with the incredibly powerful Wake Up! - a setting of text by young climate activists Greta Thunberg, Vic Barratt, Jamie Margolin, Ridhima Pandey, and Xiye Bastida. Ecco has spent the past five months wrestling with this moving, complex, and multilayered score - not to mention some tricky body percussion! - and recently recorded all of their vocal and video parts. We are also delighted that the fabulous Stanford University Chamber Chorale has joined us for this project, and have enjoyed two virtual retreats with their singers, their conductor Stephen M. Sano, and Stanford climate scientist Mike Mastandrea.

One of the experiences that has grounded me most in the earth is visiting our choral partners Vox Aurea amid the breathtaking lakes and forests of central Finland. When Ensemble last visited in June 2019, I had the chance to homestay with their conductor Sanna Salminen and enjoy all the delights of Finnish summer: freshly picked berries, sauna, and a swim in the lake behind their home. I knew Sanna would be a terrific collaborator for an earth-themed program, and we decided to work together on songs from Piae Cantiones, a medieval Finnish songbook. Sanna whipped some terrific backing tracks with her medieval instrumental ensemble, Yr Awen, and the two choirs have jointly recorded two beautiful songs about the delights of springtime - a season rather more meaningful in Finland than in the temperate Bay Area! Ensemble has worked hard on mastering the intricacies of medieval Finnish, and we’re excited to share the fruits of that collaboration as part of Singing the Earth.

We are also excited to be sharing the world premiere recordings of three gorgeous nature partsongs by the Black English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Best known for his oratorio Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, which rivaled Handel’s Messiah in popularity, Coleridge-Taylor also left a rich legacy of rarely heard, smaller-scale choral works. Ancora will be sharing the alluring From the Green Heart of the Waters, in which a chorus of sirens calls to Ulysses on the deck of his ship; Ensemble will perform the mysterious Encinctured with a twine of leaves, a setting of poetry by Coleridge-Taylor’s namesake, the writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge; and Concert Choir will share an atmospheric duet, Oh, the Summer.