Brass and organ ensemble teams with chorale for Nov. 20 concert
South Holland Master Chorale and Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble have been collaborating for years since the former was known as South Suburban Chorale.
Their next collaboration is at South Holland Master Chorale’s Hymns of Praise on Nov. 20 at The Parish of Sts. Joseph, Anne & Emeric in Homewood, Ill., where Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble, organist Mark Sudeith of Chicago’s South Side and pianist Marilyn Bourgeois of Frankfort, Ill., accompany the concert.
“We are so proud of our long history together that our hompage at gargoylebrass.com features us all together in a glorious Christmas concert in 2013,” said Rodney Holmes, founder and artistic director of Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble, which began in 1992.
That performance was conducted by Albert M. Jackson, who was then music director of South Suburban Chorale, which was associated with South Suburban College in South Holland, Ill.
“They have been a pillar of the rich music tradition of this area — Northwest Indiana and the south suburbs,” said Holmes, of Homewood.
“It’s a huge choir of people who are local. There’s just nothing like it. Both Al Jackson and Phil Bauman are masters at tailoring the music to the culture of where we are.”
Philip J. Bauman, who took over as South Holland Master Chorale’s music director after Jackson’s retirement at the end of the 2021-22 season, conducts Hymns of Praise, which is billed as featuring music for occasions including coronations, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.
“He and I met over 30 years ago. We met back in the era when he was with the Chicago Opera Theater,” said Holmes about the conductor, a longtime Bolingbrook resident who now lives in South Bend, Indiana.
“Our paths have crossed a few times. One of those times was when he was doing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. I sang under his baton so I’m thrilled to be able to continue not only the Gargoyle Brass with the Chorale but also Phil, a fine musician.
“I look forward to
continued working with him now that he’s got the Chorale. He listens a lot. He really is a collaborator. He works with people on the best ideas and what he ends up doing is truly creative.”
Holmes may have sung as a South Holland Master Chorale member during the Bauman-conducted La Porte County Symphony’s performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in 2007 but this time around the two leaders consulted to adapt three major concert hymns.
“He chose to bring us on board to do all these favorite hymns that really appeal to the South Holland audience and he knew that the way to really scale it up for an impressive full concert would be to include the brass and the organ,” Holmes said about Bauman.
“This is going to be a blowout. It’s going to be a hymn fest to end all hymn fests — the hymn fest by which the others are measured.”
Holmes and Andrew
Hunter, a trumpeter for Chicago Gargoyle Brass and Organ Ensemble, made adaptations of John Rutter’s “Christ the Lord is risen today,” Mack Wilberg’s “All Creatures of our God and King” and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “The Old Hundredth Psalm Tune” for Hymns of Praise.
“We are at the Thanksgiving time of year so this is a very joyous concert,” Holmes said.
He added that special pieces on the program include Dan Forrest’s “I Lift My Eyes (Psalm 121).”
“Forrest is one of the premier active choral composers of our time.”
Holmes also cited James Curnow’s “Rejouissance (Fantasia on Ein Feste Burg)” as a Hymns of Praise standout.
“This is the brass and organ piece which will open the program. It is the most frequently broadcast and streamed piece from our four CDs,” Holmes said.