Canterbury’s ‘Mosaic’ — combination of richness, color
Canterbury Voices finished its season on March 9, with a program that began in an eerie whisper of the Baroque and concluded with a triumphant Mozart “Hosanna!”
The first selection, a “Cruxifixus” setting by Antonio Lotti, begins almost sotto voce and climbs gradually to a chilling beauty all within the first word. This would be remarkable in any choir, but this was not just any choir. This group of over 175 singers had met each other — and their conductor — only three days earlier.
In coordination with the Southwestern regional conference of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), elements of the concert were rehearsed during the short span of the conference and demonstrated the deeply committed artistry of our region’s singers and directors. The evening opened with a stunning performance by the SW ACDA Collegiate Honor Choir, a group of college students representing 25 schools in the Southwest. They were ably conducted by Maria Guinand, an internationally known director and conductor from Venezuela.
Guinand gathered this group of talented young voices into a closely matched single unit for a series of songs that ranged from Lotti’s baroque to the recent contemporary and from settings of standard Latin texts to prayers from the African Sahel. The choir delivered each piece with verve and coordinated skill, and Guinand’s conducting was vibrant and specific.
The second half featured the Canterbury Voices in combination with the Tulsa Oratorio Singers in a performance of the Mozart “Great Mass in C minor.” This work, which is somewhat fragmentary, is missing settings for some parts of the texts of Credo and the Sanctus, and orchestrations are missing for some of the existing choral parts. Although some modern “completed” versions exist, Canterbury Director Randi von Ellefson chose to use the Rippon orchestration for only Mozart’s existing portions of the mass.
This work represents some of Mozart’s most challenging and intricate choral singing. Two of the sections are for “double chorus,” which means that there are effectively two separate, four-part choruses groups, each singing different vocal lines. The combination of Canterbury with the Tulsa Oratorio allowed for each of the choruses to be robustly performed and to render a very great mass indeed. Von Ellefson’s conducting of the combined choirs and the chamber orchestra, provided by the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, guided the performers with the skill and clarity OKC has come to expect from the gentle elements of praise and faith through the triumphant finale.
The solisti for the Mozart also were accomplished performers, although we did not hear enough from all of them — the Mass is heavily loaded for first and second sopranos. In the tricky and wide-ranging Soprano I part, originally written for Mozart’s wife, Constanze, Meray Boustani sang with assurance and good color. Shannon Salyards sang the Soprano II arias with a richness and power that did real justice to the material. Tenor Jeffery Picon and bass Kevin Eckard both sang beautifully, but neither was given much opportunity to shine in this piece. One hopes that both will have future opportunities to sing with Canterbury Voices.
For information on the 2018-19 season, go to canterburyokc.com.
— Anna Holloway, for The Oklahoman