1st Orlando Sings festival honors Pulse victims, Black composers
The first festival for Orlando Sings will have moments both somber and uplifting. The new professional choral organization, which presented its first concert in November, will now debut the Orlando Sings Choral Festival.
A series of three concerts, with the first on May 26, the festival will pay tribute to the victims of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting; honor Black composers both historical and contemporary; and cap things off with a concert in Steinmetz Hall at Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts.
“We are hoping having a festival here will be exciting and bolster Orlando’s growing reputation as a hub for choral music,” said artistic and executive director Andrew Minear.
The organization includes two ensembles, the Solaria Singers — comprised of professional Central
Florida-based vocalists — and the larger, 80-member Symphonic Chorus, which augments the pros with volunteers after a “rigorous” audition, Minear said.
The Solaria Singers get the festival underway with a May 26 performance in the Pugh Theater of the Dr. Phillips Center in downtown Orlando.
That concert will honor Black composers, many of whom have failed to get their due from the music establishment.
“We are committed to
performing music that represents the diversity of our community,” Minear said. “There is a whole treasure trove of music that has largely been undiscovered” by mainstream music listeners.
The program will feature a selection of spirituals, but also showcase other forms of musical expression by Black composers. Among the historical figures whose music will be heard: R. Nathaniel Dett and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Contemporary composers including Zanaida Robles, and André Thomas also will be featured.
The Solaria Singers will be joined by the acclaimed Master Singers of Jones High School in Orlando, under the direction of Andrea Green.
Minear hopes including the student choir will build bridges that create a more diverse arts scene for the future.
“Part of the philosophy of bringing high school singers on the stage is to activate those relationships,” he said. “Hopefully, some of those singers will become professional adult singers.”
The festival’s second concert will be part of the Pulse Remembrance Week events, and representatives from the One Pulse foundation will lead a reflection before the concert begins.
The Orlando Sings Symphonic Chorus will perform Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem on June 9 at the First United Methodist Church of Orlando, accompanied by the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra and organist Michael Ging.
“It is one of the most rapturously beautiful choral works ever written,” said Minear, explaining the composer’s use of Gregorian chant makes the piece sound both contemporary and timeless.
Also on the program is “Tse Go La (At the Threshold of This Life)” by Andrea Clearfield. It’s inspired by the work Clearfield and ethnomusicologist Katey Blumenthal did in a remote Himalayan region of Nepal bordering Tibet, in which they documented and recorded indigenous music.
“Tse Go La” takes a journey from birth “to passing from this life to the next,”
Minear said. “Though it is not a requiem, it is a fitting way to reflect on our lives and our humanity.”
The final concert, June 11 in the Dr. Phillips Center’s Steinmetz Hall, will feature Eric Whitacre’s “The Sacred Veil,” accompanied by piano and cello.
“The stunning acoustics of that room will bring such a level of clarity” to the music, Minear said.
The cello, played by David Bjella, represents the veil itself — the bridge between this world and the afterlife.
In “The Sacred Veil” poet/lyricist Charles Anthony Silvestri tells a story of life, love and grief based on losing his wife, Julie, to ovarian cancer at age 36 in 2005.
“It’s a powerful story of love and loss and ultimately solace and acceptance,” said Minear, whose wife also died of cancer. “This work is deeply personal. I believe everyone in the audience will be moved, an important healing for everyone who has suffered loss.”
The program will conclude with Shawn Kirchner’s “Heavenly Home,” three songs of faith and hope that will create “a thrilling and uplifting finale,” Minear said.